{"id":352,"date":"2016-06-16T23:45:28","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T23:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/?p=352"},"modified":"2016-06-16T23:45:28","modified_gmt":"2016-06-16T23:45:28","slug":"wisteria-evil-overlord-of-the-plant-kingdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/archives\/352","title":{"rendered":"Wisteria: Evil Overlord of the Plant Kingdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wisteria\"<\/a> I know, I know\u2026Wisteria is beautiful. Beautiful blooms, beautiful smell, blah blah blah. Wisteria is also Evil Overlord of the Plant Kingdom<\/strong>. If you have one in your yard, you should know that this plant\u2019s primary goal is to destroy everything\u2014including your house.<\/p>\n

Think I\u2019m joking? I am not. My proof:<\/p>\n

1. Wisteria is a legume.<\/strong> That means it looks<\/em> like a flowering plant, yet it\u2019s closely related to baked beans. It\u2019s been tricking us for years\u2014and that, right there, should be your first tip-off that something sneaky and dangerous is growing in your yard.<\/p>\n

2. Wisteria makes minions.<\/strong> I have three wisteria trees. Three is enough. But every week, hundreds (I kid you not\u2014hundreds<\/em>) of wisteria suckers pop up all over my lawn. Every week, we mow them down. Every week, they pop up again. If my lawnmower breaks, I\u2019ll have to move.<\/p>\n

3. Wisteria kills.<\/strong> Wisteria tendrils look pretty, but they grow several feet every day in the summer months. If you don\u2019t trim them back\u2014fast\u2014they\u2019ll wrap around innocent trees and tighten like psychotic little boa constrictors, turning a yard that was once a beautiful green oasis into a forest of dead tree stumps. Behold, this evil plant in action:<\/p>\n

\"file0001990584502\"<\/a><\/p>\n

4. Wisteria is vindictive.<\/strong> I\u2019ve been aggressively trimming back my three wisteria, trying to stop them from choking the life out of everything else in the yard. They\u2019ve retaliated by growing thick, ropy roots across the surface of the ground\u2014roots that these evil plants now use to trip me every time I walk by.<\/p>\n

5. Wisteria has attachment issues.<\/strong> If you try to pull a wisteria vine off a brick wall, it will bring bits of the brick and mortar down with it. Ditto paint, window trim and gutters. Try to pull a long wisteria vine out of a tree that it\u2019s invading, and it will snap off large branches and hurl them at your head as it crashes to the ground.<\/p>\n

Yes, wisteria is beautiful. But be forewarned: If you plant one in your yard, you\u2019ve invited a selfish, destructive tenant into your life\u2014one that will refuse to be evicted. It\u2019s a legume with an attitude. Don\u2019t say I didn\u2019t warn you.<\/p>\n

Did you enjoy this post? Subscribe to my blog and you\u2019ll never miss my once-a-month updates! It\u2019s easy: Just enter your email address in the upper right corner of this page. I\u2019ll never sell, share, or rent your contact information, because I hate it when people do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know, I know\u2026Wisteria is beautiful. Beautiful blooms, beautiful smell, blah blah blah. Wisteria is also Evil Overlord of the Plant Kingdom. If you have one in your yard, you should know that this plant\u2019s primary goal is to destroy everything\u2014including your house. Think I\u2019m joking? I am not. My proof: 1. Wisteria is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funny-bits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":357,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/brendakearns.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}