Our house was originally a 1950's ranch built on a sloping street. As was typical of those homes, the garage was underneath the house at the downhill side of the lot, accessible from the point farthest from the kitchen and living room. When we overhauled the house, we located the front door at the other end and took advantage of a "grandfathered" second driveway that appeared on the site plan but had never been built to add a second driveway with parking for guests and to allow direct access to the kitchen -- meaning I can get groceries in easily rather than lugging them upstairs and through the full length of the house.
Two driveways. Very convenient. Seemed like such a great idea. But. It also means that we have two driveways to clear in winter (it takes a solid 2 hours to do that) and two driveways to keep presentable in the spring and summer. Most of our time and attention is spent on the top driveway (pictured above) where guests enter and both the porch and mound seating areas encourage lounging and looking.
With few exceptions, Mr. Mulch and I are the only ones who see what's happening on the rear driveway, so it tends towards benign neglect. We keep the side closest to the house fairly well in order, but turn a blind eye towards the downhill side until it's absolutely unavoidable. The other day we noticed that the hemlocks that line that part of the driveway were under assault from some very tenacious virginia creeper. In fact, there was so much creeper on a few of the trees, that their tops were almost obscured.
Jeepers, creepers!!
Unavoidably, time to spring into action. We spent the better part of two hours freeing hemlocks from the gnarly grasp of creeper, though it fought hard. There were several times that I fell victim to its sucker punch; pulling hard on a thick vine until it suddenly snapped and I wound up ass over teakettle in the pachysandra. I swear I heard it laughing at me. But we prevailed and it does look a whole lot better. And the sighs of relief from the hemlocks were every bit as audible as the vines' guffaws.
Newly freed hemlock, with a few shreds of vines remaining in places I couldn't reach.
We may have won the battle with the vines, but there were some minor casualties. Both Mr. Mulch and I had were left to nurse a few wounds. (Warning: graphic image below!) Let it not be said that I don't give this garden my all!
Yeah, but you should have seen the other guy...