Jasmines aren’t the only vines on our fence. We saw this other plant/vine thing push out a few blossoms early in the summer, and had no idea what it was. By random chance, I happened to walk right by the exact same plant (the flowers are very distinctive) in the hardware store while searching for mulch. Thus I was able to identify ours as a bougainvillea, and then discover that everyone else already knew all about this plant. Go figure.

Anyway, at that point I figured we’d just leave it alone for the summer and see what happened. Fast forward a few months, and it turns out we actually have two of these plants, and they apparently flower and grow like crazy. Sigh. It was getting to the point where I was concerned that it might start growing into our neighbor’s yard (where they have a pretty hardcore edible garden going) so I finally pulled out the hedge trimmers and attacked. Oh the carnage…

The hulking purple, before and after:

The not-quite-so-hulking magenta, before and after:

And this was just round one. The purple one was especially exciting because it was all tangled up with the jasmine on the left. I also took the opportunity to cut back what I’m convinced is a giant weed masquerading as a tree growing almost right on top of the pink roses. It’s the tall plant growing just to the left of the magenta bougainvillea in the “before” picture above. I think I gave it a fair chance to do something interesting, but all it did was get taller and greener, while the roses got yellower and sicklier.

Anyway, I figure we’ll cut the jasmines and the bougainvillea waaaay back in the fall and try to direct their growth in a more planned way in the spring.