Wandering Willie.

Recently I caught something on TV from New Zealand where they did a show on the top ten Invasive plants over there. One they discussed was called Wandering Willie. Now I had never heard of this plant before, but as soon as I saw it I recognised it as what I knew as Wandering Jew. It is also an invasive plant here in Oz.

In wondering out loud as to why the difference in name, my first born replied that maybe it had something to do with Political Correctness. Now I am not a great one for Political Correctness over common usage, but I also have no desire to offend people either intentionally or unintentionally. Therefore in this article although I am talking about what I know as Wandering Jew, I will hence forth refer to it as Wandering Willie.

Wandering Willie is one of those very versatile plants in that it thrives in very wet conditions and survives in very dry ones. Being a succulent type of plant it stores up lots of water and thus even though it shrivels up in dry conditions, it usually survives to thrive again when the rains come. It also has a habit of breaking off into little pieces that can also make roots and spread itself.

This very ability to survive and thrive made it originally very popular as a cheap and inexpensive ground cover that could be grown almost anywhere. But of course like most plants of this type, it was not content to stay where wanted, but rapidly spread any and every where it could. So soon, those who lovingly encouraged it into their gardens, were desperately struggling to get rid of it. Fortunately it is not as hard to get rid of as Oxalis, but you do need to keep at it.

I have seen Wandering Willie in various gardens, and although it would not rate highly in my list of desirable plants, I have never hated it. In fact when we moved into this place a few years back I was not unhappy to see it growing as a ground cover under the trees and making a nice dark green show of it. I was still happy with this situation a few months later when a couple of Pups came along, but it was not to last. One , if not both dogs quickly came out in a rash that was worked out to be coming from their running, playing, and hiding in the Wandering Willie. Hence something had to give. As it was never going to be the pups, it had to be Wandering Willie.

Although there was a lot of it and I had to keep at it for a while, it wasn’t too hard to remove from our yard and today there is none left to irritate the Dogs.

Well that is what I thought, but just recently despite not having been seen for a couple of years and despite a severe drought, I have discovered some still growing in a crowded area which has just started to recover with the removal of 3 big pine trees and with the moisture of a lot of Grey water being put on the 4 small flowering gum trees planted there to replace the pines.

The point here is that there are many similarities in our own lives. Deep down there are some things in our pasts that can suddenly re-appear after many years of absence if we let them. The thing is, just like with the new appearance of wandering Willie, what happens next is what is important. When these things re-appear we have two choices, either immediately do something about it to remove or neutralize these things, or allow them to grow back unhindered. You may say, well no I am taking a third option and letting them grow for a little while and then I will once again remove them.

I am sorry but there is no third option. You either remove these invading plants when you first see them when there is little to remove or it will outgrow you and you will never get rid of it. You have to hit these invading plants and invading habits as soon as you see them and as hard and as fast as you can. Otherwise you will never be free of them. The longer you let them hang around, the harder it will be to finally remove them.

What say you? Walter