wildflowers and weeds (was Re: Eggcorn?)

[Michael Quinion]

Peter McGraw emoted:

> Oh noooo!!! So THAT'S what I planted in my garden a couple of years
> ago, thinking it was an attractive little shrub (the foliage is pretty,
> and it even has a pretty blossom).  Last year it unmasked itself as a
> ground cover, and this year I'm realizing I have a battle on my hands
> like the one I already have elsewhere with that creeper that has
> blossoms like periwinkle but bigger leaves and another name (which I
> can never remember).  I was hoping I could at least contain it to this
> small patch, but this exchange tells me that cold-blooded mass murder
> is probably going to be the only solution.

One of my neighbours has a similar problem and has been adopting much
the same scorched-earth policy with it, so far unavailingly. What's
worse for her is that it's coming through the fence from the next
door garden, whose former owner won the plant in a raffle at a local
tea dance and put it in his garden unknowingly, not being much of a
gardener. Since he was a local policeman, I can't avoid the suspicion
that it was some sort of engineered sick joke ...

--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: <wordseditor at worldwidewords.org>
Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>