Background: I have a feeder in the yard and we get a lot of visiting birds, along with squirrels, chipmunks, and the odd raccoon. Given all this traffic, plus wind and Nature’s Mysterious Ways, we also have a lot of what real gardeners (not me) call “volunteer” plants. I found what looked like a raspberry sprout and, ever curious, stuck it into an unused planter off to the side.
Mmm, delicious, I thought. Raspberries. Or blackberries. Or whatever. What’s not to like?
And for a while, everything went swimmingly. Despite poor light, irregular watering, and general lack of care, the plant thrived. It made it through last winter unprotected and came back in the spring. Now it’s a bush-sized marvel taking up way more space than intended. Fine, I thought, I’ll trim it back. Let me just take off the last foot or so of these canes. I’ll take my trusty pruners and grab this green bit and pull the end over and…

Overlord, with roots.
What?
It turns out that there is a reason why real gardeners (still not me) do not generally welcome volunteer raspberry (or whatever) sprouts in their gardens. I knew that they were hard to kill, and that they spread via seeds. What I did not know is that these plants were lulling me into a false sense of security so that they could spread by slo-mo walking from spot to spot, rooting their cane *tips* whenever they could. Drawing their emerald chains ever tighter around me.
I had to yank hard on the cane, full weight behind the effort, leather gloves punctured by thorns and all, before I could uproot this monster. And it had friends!

Overlord, with traitorous cat. Figures.
Here’s a closeup shot of the leaves; perhaps one of you out there knows the exact subspecies of plant. All I know is that if I let this go on much longer, we’ll all be calling it “Master.”
So the plant/future overlord has to go. Just as soon as I get over the cold I picked up last weekend. Time for some raspberry herbal tea, I think:)
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