All of which goes to show....do what it takes not to fight with your neighbors. They may be unreasonable (one of ours called the cops to report an abandoned car parked in front of our house....that belonged to my daughter who was on vacation). They may be dead wrong (one of ours thought that, because their property is subject to an easement for use by their adjoining neighbors, they had an easement to use my property). They may even be right (when we were first married more than 30 years ago, another of ours objected that our dog, who we had trained to retrieve the newspaper, was taking their paper. She was.). We have learned to be considerate. When their wishes infringe on our right to live as we please, we set down boundaries, explaining why and what we are doing, accommodating what we can. Neighbor doesn't like cars parked in our driveway? Too bad. We have friends. Neighbor likes to spray the property line with Roundup? Fine, so long as not one drop gets on my plants planted along the fence line. Neighbor doesn't like the view of my yard from their living room window? Fair enough. We do what we can, planting screening to soften infrastructure installed by the developer. Of course I wonder why they didn't do the same on their own property. But I screen nonetheless. It's all part of being a good neighbor. Funny how barking dogs and trash containers get people nuts. We have neighbors who seems to think that leaving the emptied trash containers up on the street for an hour past trash pickup is a sign of poor breeding. Oh well. The green can is so heavy that I cannot wrangle it up the driveway. I get half way up, and it rolls me right back down. So when my gardener fills it, he also does the service of putting the green can up by the street. Neighborhoods used to be organized with those wonderful alleyways at the back of the property. We don't live in that world any more. As for dogs, there's a big difference between a young dog learning to enjoy staying in the yard alone for the first time and a dog that barks all day, every work day while its owner is at work. But not to my neighbors.

Hey, thanks, folks, Y'all are right - space hog is relative. I'm buying smaller plants these days, the most recent being a Masde floribunda in a 1.5" pot. Scott, you're great at finding the perfect "visual aid" for the subject. Kudos to Linda at Seagrove Orchids who coached me along the way. She was patient and full of good info each time I wondered if this plant needed another home. Jan, thanks for the compliment. Don't tell my plants about your growing conditions, or they might mutiny. :) Whitecat8 Here is a link that might be useful: Seagrove Orchids

With all this rain we actually have mushrooms coming up in our yard. Could it be some kind of fungus?

I'm not sure if you can dig it out or not. I found the link below by doing a search on bamboo eradication. It's a tough one. There is a bamboo forum here and someone there may be able to advise you better. Good luck. Here is a link that might be useful: Eradicating bamboo