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Re: Garden thugs

This is a very old thread but I did wonder whether the "Fraxinus" that
Liz is talking about could possibly be the dreaded and totally misnamed
"Tree of Heaven", the Chinese Ailanthus sp, which has replaced much of
the natural Quercus vegetation in these parts (Southern Italy, Adriatic
coast) after being planted as an ornamental street tree, a job it does
very well, were it not for its vigourous ash-like winged seeds which
seem to self-sow even in a crack in three inch thick concrete, and then
proceeds to grow at an alarming rate. Uproot it and up come new shoots.
A candidate for the title of thug to beat all thugs.
It looks very much like an ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) from a distance
and can easily be overlooked where ashes are also present. Does your ash
have red berries or limegreen "keys"?

(By the way, I'm sorry your Vinca is such a problem, it's a godsend  in
my garden!)


Anthony

Liz Runciman wrote:

> Another thug here (Adelaide, S. Aus) is the wretched
> Vinca sp.  Get rid of it in one spot, and it pops up a
> metre away.  My garden is on the bank of a creek and so
> is host to one of the worst garden thugs in this city,
> the mountain ash - Fraxinus ?  It self-seeds all along the
> banks of the creeks, overshadowing everything else and
> elbowing out the native vegetation.  It's the last to
> lose its leaves in winter and the first to regain them
> in spring.
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