A Gardening Public Service Announcement

Pyracantha is the worst.  I'm not kidding - it's THE worst.

Evil spines of death.

If you ever see Pyracantha in a nursery, run away.  Unless of course, you enjoy being a human pincushion any time you come near this shrub.  Or you live in a rough neighborhood and are looking for an alternative to bars on the windows - just plant one of these under your windows.  Nobody will ever rob you.

Satan's needle bush.

For us, this shrub was planted just outside our gate.  The perfect place for it to prick us with its terrible thorns as much as possible.  On top of that, it had been planted too close to the house, so it had to go.

It didn't go without a fight.  It fought us all afternoon - and we both have a plethora of puncture wounds to prove it.  But in the end, we won.

The stump is about to meet its match - J with a mattock.

And the only remains are in seven of these ten bags of yard waste.

Sweet victory!  J + A - 1; Pyracantha - 0

The other three bags are another bush we removed that was planted WAY too close to the house.

Pulling up one of the roots.

In fact, one of the roots ran many feet along the side of our house.

Time for some Grubby's Roasted Root Stew!

And thanks to J's chainsaw and mattock - no more stump!

Sort of looks like a human heart, right?!

Not a bad day of yard work.