Y'all make me laugh. Goats would work but some neighbors don't appreciate having goats next door. I happen to love goats, but don't have any and don't want them. I already have enough animals and plants to feed and care for. We do have neighbors with goats, and if there is anything cuter than little kids playing in the pasture or goat yard, I don't know what it is. Goats are great unless they find a way into someone's vegetable garden, and then they can become demons of destruction. Kate, I love invasive vines and plant them on purpose because they generally survive drought on no rainfall, unlike everything else around here. They do make a wonderful privacy screen. If you want to cut and remove them, you will have the best success by cutting them off at ground level and painting a brush killer onto the stumps. Or, drill holes in the stumps and pour the brush killer into the holes. Nothing else will get rid of aggresive vining plants, and there is nothing organic that works even 10% as well on aggressive vines as a synthetic brush killer. You have to be careful, though, and cannot compost any of the plant matter from plants treated with brush killer as it sometimes degrades very slowly and can survive the composting process and then kill plants you try to grow in compost that contains traces of the brush killer. I am thinking about extending the eastern edge of our garden about 20' by moving the fence 20' east from where it sits now just so I can plant a row of aggressive vines along the east and south garden fencelines. I was watching our neighbor's hired hand drive back and forth pulling a spray rig behind him for the last two days and I know what this means 9 times out of 10. It means his herbicide drift will reach my tomato plants and severely harm or kill them. As I pondered what I could grow as a living border to protect the plants, it occurred to me that trumpet creeper would do it. Now I'm going to have to break the news to Tim that I want to extend the size of the garden just so I have room to plant some highly invasive vines. He hates putting up new fencing (after fencing in our 14.4 acres when we bought it, he swore he'd never put up any more fencing again). Ha! It is like pulling teeth to get him to put up more fencing, but I've managed to get him to fence in gardens, chicken runs and a dog yard that keeps our dogs contained in one spot. Be sure you really want to get rid of the vines before you do it because it is a ton of work, and you lose a ton of privacy and also a living barrier that may keep your neighbors' use of herbicide from sending drift into your garden that will kill your plants. I get herbicide drift when local ranchers spray herbicides in their fields, when the county road workers spray roadside areas that are too steep to mow (like the banks of our creek near the county road/bridge), and when the railroad sprays the area alongside the tracks that are well over a mile away from us. The more highly invasive plants I can grow to our east the better since all the sprayed areas from which we get herbicide drift are to our east because our woodlands protect us from the south (mostly), the west and the north, the better it is for all the flowers, veggies and herbs I love to grow. Sometimes highly invasive vines serve a very useful purpose. Good luck killing them, if you're sure that's what you want. Dawn

Cute doggies! Mine is a Yorkie/Maltese mix and is cute as a button. Nice growing, Barb! Next to pups popping out of the soil, pups coming out of a drain hole are my favorite things to see. My problem is I never know how to repot with a pup diving out the bottom! Please let me know/see how you handled it.

I lost my first GE, but had plbanted it in a poor site. The second time I was much more careful and backfilled the planting hole with lots of lovely leaf mold. That was nine years ago and GE has thrived and is one of the focal points in a bed of hosta. I would wager that I have watered the entire bed only once or twice in its existence, The hosta receives morning sun and shade in the afternoon. Since your picture shows GE in flower now, I suspect it has been raised in a greenhouse and force fed. You will probably need to pamper it at the beginning to wean it from its hothouse environment.

That’s a really nice plant. I hope he does well for you. I’m not sure where you are, but here he really needs a nice constant supple of water, full sun, and he seems to like organic rose fertilizer like Jobe’s. He didn’t like other fertilizers I’ve tried, even fish emulsion, kelp, alfalfa and others. Of course you wouldn‘t fertilize him yet, not until he is better established.