Paige told me yesterday that we have a maple tree growing right out of the middle of the creeping phlox in the front garden! When I didn't believe her, she sent me this picture! The leaves are identical to the maple that the developer planted all along the street. And the form of it too...the stalk. What do I do?????
Maples often pop up in the spring, from the helicopter seeds they spit out all over the place. At my last house, I was forever pulling them out of my beds because we had 2 large maples right in our backyard. Feel free to pull it up. And that looks like Candytuft, not Creeping Phlox. Hard to tell, Im not wearing my glasses lol
Volunteers like that come in all shapes and sizes....I have Pecan, Hackberry, Crepe Myrtle, Mimosa and a few unnamed trees that fly in from the neighborhood and show up every Spring. And they almost always come up exactly where you do NOT want them. If the roots aren't too strong you can pull it up but you might have to get in with a narrow shovel and really dig it out. If you leave the roots, (meaning if you just cut or break it off at ground level), it will come back.
My main weed this spring has been red Japanese maple seedlings. I have been pulling hundreds of them. Don't let it get too big if you don't want a big tree there. They can get pretty challenging to dig after a year or so.
Thanks folks. I'll direct Paige to this thread, and go from here. I imagine we're just going to pull the thing out. I can't imagine she wants a tree in the middle of her front garden bed!!!!
You might, well, will loose some of the flowers pulling it or digging it out. But if you don't she will end up with a sixty foot tall maple tree in her garden. My grandestparents didn't pull one from the very edge of their garden a decade before in was born and now it's a monster. As an aside and not to derail your thread. Its amazing how trees you don't want to grow end up growing like weeds. But trees you want to grow only take a quarter the time they're put in.
OH goodness. You reminded me of what I will be doing a lot of this spring. Pulling LOTS of maple seedling out of my flower beds. I HATE them. They come up everywhere. That one will take some digging. I wonder if you cut it off at ground level and put vinegar on the stub if that would kill it. It works on Bull thistles. When I find one growing in my yard I chop it off at ground level and then drowned it in vinegar. They never grow back.
