What about bamboo?? I've heard that the roots can be huge and grow horizonally for quite a distance, and are a battle to keep under control. Bamboo When you need a concrete bunker to contain a plant, you know you’re in trouble. Some varieties of bamboo are so determined to spread that only extreme measures, such as plastic or concrete root barriers, can keep its rhizomes from invading your azaleas. Running varieties include Chimono-bambusa, Indocalamus, Pleioblastus, and Sasa. Clumping varieties are much better behaved — Bambusa, Borinda, Chusquera, Fargesia, and Otatea grow and spread more slowly. Image: Liz Foreman for HouseLogic
@Ken Anderson Thus natives have long cut it down and used it for multiple purposes. Weren't the blowguns used by some fashioned from bamboo of some kind? Frank
Fishing poles! My first fishing pole was a very long bamboo pole. My grandmother only used bamboo poles.
FWIW, if I remember right, Bamboo is a type of GRASS, which can have extremely strong stalks like small tree trunks. Frank
We have quite a bit of bamboo growing around the house and it pretty much stays under control with the exception of about mid through late spring and that’s when the surprises start. I have seen an area totally devoid of any plant life within 4 feet of a stand of bamboo on one day and go by the same area the next day and a 3 footer would be standing there. The growth is so phenomenal in that one of our bamboo plants was topped just below the gutter on the house and within a day or so it was around 6 feet above the gutter. (Note the word, “was”) The stuff makes a good wind break and provides some privacy wherever it grows and Yvonne has even used some of the stalks to make some fencing around her garden. Bottom line is that yes, we both like the stuff but also yes, it can be troublesome unless of course you like to use a machete. One house about a mile from us has some bamboo that is 30 or so feet taller than some of the maple and pecan trees that thrive near the stand.
Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs (Halyomorpha halys). They are trying to get into my house right now, but not this many. Not just a nuisance ...
@Nancy Hart We see a few of those here in the Desert from time to time, but so rarely, I can't even say during which season. At least ours look like that! Frank
There used to be stink bugs years ago when I lived in Ohio, but very rarely seen. Our dog used to come in smelling like them from time to time. Must have been a different variety.
@Nancy Hart There is also a very stinky bug known as the Earwig. Found commonly in the Desert. Males have ferocious-looking pincers, curved, but which are straight in females. Never heard of anyone being "pinched". A female of the common earwig in a threat pose. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earwig