Beastie

[Scott NC]

  That's a great piece Larry, I like the materials you chose and the way you used them.   I think it would be great to take part in something like that.  Having a bunch of fun is the best part of it all.  Does it now reside there among the flowers so people can see it?

  I agree 100% about the older scrap, it has so much more character and interesting shapes that just seem to flow and work together.  There were members here, who at one time showed their old machinery and scrap piles.  I sometimes go back and look at the topics.......  I have the front of an old one bottom horse drawn plow that I swear looks like a dragons head, for a future project.

[Daswulf]

That's for sure. I dont have the space or handling equipment to go too big. I would Love to, with all the ideas I have. That would also be the point I would need an in at a scrapyard. 

Scott, I have some nice old stuff I'm saving for the right project as well. Some of it is getting swallowed by Jagger bushes and other weeds. Just more work to do since nature takes a break for no one that doesnt have the time to keep up with it or the money to really tame it. 

[Scott NC]

  I've been trying to clear this place since I got here.  You can't pull the roots out and the vines go clear to the top of the pine trees.  Theres poison oak mixed in there too.  I'd like to take a flame thrower to it all.

[Frosty]

The temptation to put it to practical use is why I don't have a flame thrower.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Daswulf]

Well... I Do have yardage but it is all hill. Just not a shop big enough or equipment to handle the large sculptures like cranes and aerial hoists. Best I could do is make the builds modular like Scrapartoz does. Which is smart of you needed to get it into a building without a huge garage door. 

I won't say that I don't have jaggers, vines, poison ivy and stuff "eating" some of my scrap piles. 

Thinking maybe, as much as I hate using the kind of stuff, that weed killer liquid might help. Might go to an agway or something and see about agricultural vinegar. 

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

We have the same problem with Virginia creeper, wild grape vines (that never have grapes) and about a dozen others that would take over the whole place. I once found a grape vine that had a trunk about 5 inches in diameter, had to chainsaw it and pull it out of the trees with the truck.

Round up with proper PPE and showering after using it, is about all that keeps everything in check. We once got foolish and planted some bamboo, wholly cow it took the rippers and bond fires to get it gone and every once in a while a sprout will appear and I spray it .

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

[Frosty]

Isn't Jagger a flowering perennial? I don't see much about it online except for ads selling various colors. 

I use salt to keep the weeds down between the porch and where we park. Roundup isn't the toxic hazard the ambulance chasing law firms in TV ads say it is. No, you don't want to live downwind of fields it's sprayed on or use it a lot yourself, prolonged contact is an un-good thing. PPE and soap and water is the ticket. It doesn't work on what I need killed and I got crazy and poured in on the weeds!

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[Daswulf]

Wysteria and wild grape vines have taken over my lower garage. The wild grapes do produce but I have no time to harvest or use them so I'd prefer my garage back. Kids take the time out of other time lol. Rat race everyday and no extra help from the other do do stuff she doesnt. God blessed those that have a supportive partner. Mine drove a wedge, killed the muse and has me do more and more that she could do while I can do less and less that she couldnt. 

I can only imagine what I could accomplish with a supportive partner. 

Frosty, here in southwest PA we kinda call anything with "thorns" jaggers. It includes raspberry, BlackBerry, wild rose, and other "thorny" plants. Also have the "clinger" plants like some Docks, and "spiky" plants like nettles, again Docks and whatever plant has those little bb sized balls that stick to you everywhere. 

There are some spiky vines we dont really have thank God. I have been seeing a few new variety of invasive vines. One was nasty spiky. Think they are most commonly found down south. 

[Frosty]

We have wild rose, nettles and a few others. We had a really unpleasant neighbor I was really tempted to plant raspberry just my side of the property line. 

You aren't looking for spiky vines are you? Bougainvillea vine is beautiful smells nice and has long straight sharper than a needle thorns you can hardly cut with dikes. Once rooted a flame thrower would only trim it. My job at the house on Napa street was to trim the one in front of the kitchen window so we could get into the crawl space. Seems the landscaper for that track of homes planted a bougainvillea below all the kitchen windows. Some had taken over the front half of houses.

The one person who was grateful for hers was the lady who lived across the street one house down from us. A military jet trainer doing touch and goes at the Van Nuys airport snagged the powerline and hit the roof of her house upside down. The woman had stepped into the hallway to answer the phone, a wrong number so wasn't hit with broken glass and the ceiling in the kitchen. From the phone she could see the windows from front to back and side to side were covered in burning jet fuel. All of them except the one by the kitchen window with the bougainvillea covering it almost completely. The fuel took a little time to work down through the plant, long enough she was able to jump out the window and crawl out from under the bougainvillea and escape alive.

The house was a total loss but the lady and the bougainvillea survived. The county bought all the houses on the blocks across the street from us and increased the airport safety zone. We had an unobstructed view of planes taking off and landing. No more jets though. If I'm ever in that neighborhood again I'm going to see if all those bougainvillea are still there.

Sorry for the long ramble but I have some vivid memories of that giant thorn bush. Painfully red memories.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Daswulf]

Your vivid memories are always welcome. 

No thanks on the plant lol.sounds great but also hard to control. I dont recall the name but my grandmother had some spiky shrubs planted here long before I moved in after my grandparents passing. After a couple times painfully trimming it I took them out. I did replant them away on the property but they didnt take. 

As far as spikey plants I like, I transplanted a Hawthorn tree to beside the driveway. It took well in the clay soil and has done well. Think I might be the only one that likes it there. Might transplant more from up on the hill. 

[Frosty]

Ours was more red than this one but it ruled it's part of our house like this, from the ground to the eves. There was a pic online of one covering a pine tree that looks to be 40-50' tall.

      

AND these are the thorns. I remember them larger but I guarantee they felt lots larger. They are wicked sharp and the sticks ache for quite a while.

Frosty The Lucky.

[George N. M.]

When I was at Ft. Lewis, WA in 1970 several other Lieutenants and I rented a house in Steilacoom, WA.  We couldn't figure out why there were anumber of sickles hung on the wall of the walk out basement.  When summer came we discovered why, a BIG patch of blackberry bushes beside and behind the house which were VERY aggressive.  We had to hack them back about weekly to keep them from taking over and grabbing someone's car overnight.

Good and prolific berries though.

GNM