Pretty, bad

Some garden invaders advertise themselves with spines and thorns, clearly a foe. Others throw you off the scent with flowers.

Our first attractive interloper was Japanese honeysuckle. The white and yellow flowers popped up over our back fence, and it had successfully scaled the tree next to it. From our window, I saw the same little flowers peek out of other treetops. This clambering scamp is vigorous enough to cause canopy collapse, smothering everything in its path as it climbs towards the light. I removed an incredible tangle of it, with the rest turning autumnal colours after my snipping and stump painting.

We also had a lovely/terrible stand of Montbretia, which quietly existed as a broad grass all year but suddenly announced itself with a flurry of orange flowers in early January. It’s probably the best-looking weed we’ve got (sorry, agapanthus) and there were some protests when I started plucking it out from around one of the feijoas. There are a few dozen on the bank down to the street and they seem to spread like wildfire, so I doubt we’ll ever be short of the blazing blooms.