Least favorite plant: asparagus fern

My friends Kelly and Erik of the Homegrown Evolution blog and authors of the terrific how-to book Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-sufficient Living in the Heart of the City just wrote a very funny post about a plant they can't stand: the asparagus fern.

Read the entire entry, but here are a couple of good bits:

"When I saw a vendor at a farmer's market selling potted Asparagus setaceus, I felt like I was witnessing a crack dealer in an elementary school lunchroom."

and...

Even if you could eat the shoots, you would have the world's smallest side dish. Breed a one inch tall pig and you could make tiny pork chops to go along with your buttered Asparagus setaceus.

Least favorite plant: asparagus fern

• [buddy66]

  That’s no shit about Oregon blackberries! They’re ugly, voracious things. Each year they tried to eat my wooden deck. And the berries are miserable too.

• [Takuan]

  it distresses me to hear hurtful things said about blackberries. If it were not for blackberries, what bear-bait would you have to rub on your co-hiker’s backpack?

• [murrayhenson]

  I think the Blackberries from Oregon Blackberry are actually pretty good. My brother and I grew up on 10 acres out in Clackamas County and, when we weren’t doing chores, had to eliminate the new blackberry growth. We found that a Christmas tree shearing knife – much lighter than a machete – works wonders.

• [ballookey]

  So THAT’S what that garbage is!!!

  Ever since we moved into my husband’s family’s old house, this stuff has been driving me nuts in all corners of our garden. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is so that I could target it’s weaknesses.

  It’s a monster to deal with. It’s smothering a nearby eucalyptus tree, the thorns are tough and make it nasty to pull down and when you do, any dry branches will shower you with itchy little hair-like bits. The roots are a nasty business – not terribly large, but tough and they get a hell of a grip in the soil. I find a claw-type garden implement the best to dig them up.

  I can’t believe anyone would plant this pest on purpose.

• [Anonymous]

  I’ve been fighting the asparagus weed in my yard for 2 years. All the “gripping and twisting” of the weed that won’t let go, I tore a tendon in one elbow and have tendonitis in the other. Meenwhile, despite pleas, the culprit neighbor allows them to grow rampant on her quarter acre hillside. They are destroying our landscape. So, with another fern affected neighbor,as my accomplice, I’m going commando. Yes, donning a ski mask and black attire, I shall climb over the fence with gallons of vegetation killer.

• [Anonymous]

  Here on my block the devil is the Japanese knotweed aka Mexican bamboo, though in the sunny parts of the yard it’s been out-competed by wild carrot. My sister, about 2 miles away has a mulberry tree she just can’t shake.

  Apparently everyone has some plant in their garden they’d like to eliminate — it seems to be something of a metaphor for man vs. nature

• [Anonymous]

  Hell, over here on the Right Coast the Yuppies have been planting (supposedly sterile) “bradford pears” (Pyrus calleryana “Bradford”)for a decade or two.

  Turns out the bedamned things are only self-sterile, and have crossbred with something else to spawn a nightmarish thorn tree that grows faster than anything native and seeds like topsy.

  http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2179/0008-7475(2005)070%5B0020%3AOTSACD%5D2.0.CO%3B2

  There are clumps of it in Maryland that are less than three years old, have hundreds of spiky trunks and are nearly 15 feet high. They retain the stinky smell and pretty blossoms of the original tree, but seem to be relatively indestructible (Bradford pears, despite the growers’ grandiose claims, are weak-limbed and subject to many diseases).

  HATE EM HATE EM HATE EM!

• [dragonfrog]

  Interesting you should say that Ballookey, as eucalyptus itself is a problematic invasive species in a lot of places. Its very deep roots can lower the water table and kill of nearby stands of native trees.

  (not blaming you or anything – it just goes to show that what’s a weed is a question of definition)

• [Homegrown Evolution]

  Asparagus Fern is the popular name for Asparagus setaceus and it is not a fern. It’s actually related to Asparagus.

  For a provocative and controversial take on what constitutes an “invasive” species see David Theodoropoulos’ book Invasion Biology: Critique of a Pseudoscience.

• [SKR]

  This stuff is very difficult to eradicate. I have had limited success with digging it up and then spraying with a multispectral herbicide at 2x concentration. Roundup just kills it back to the ground. You have to keep up the spraying until the shoots stop popping up or the plant will be able to reestablish itself and you are back to square one.

• [subhan]

  This stuff has nothing on the Himalayan Blackberry that we have up here in Portland. If Satan has a garden it’s full of these! Inch-thick canes with 1/4″ spikes that grow so fast you can almost see them wrapping around your ankles. They also send thin runners out through the grass that will shred your toes if caught in the front of your sandal.

• [Anonymous]

  How funny! When I first saw an asparagus fern in someone’s office I freaked out and began asking questions about it… it was instantly my favorite plant! It just seemed so soft and lovely…

• [Flashman]

  This stuff is all over South Africa, and it’s brutal, especially if you have to bushwack through it.
  The little barbs dig into you and just won’t let go.
  I don’t think it’s called ‘asparagus fern’ though – it probably has a much more derogatory name in Afrikaans. I think actually this is the same thing referred to in ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’ as the ‘wait-a-bit’ tree.

• [Red Zebra]

  “Least favourite”??!! :-o
  How can anyone into evolution dislike ferns and their fractal fronds??
  See: http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=fern+fractal

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  Despite its delicate appearance, it’s very heat and drought tolerant.

• [dargaud]

  “Least favourite” ?!?

  I picked some up at the base of a cliff while climbing last WE. Made pasta with it, some cream, grated parmesan: very tasty. It’s not the volume, it’s the taste ! Heh.

  And how can you not like something that makes your pee smell so weird ?!? ];-P

• [Anonymous]

  I reacted with similar stunned amazment when I saw these on sale at home depot. Like I spotted a drug dealer, I alerted my friend and was like “wtf are they seliing there!!”