Beware the Sprig!

If you have ever been anywhere that sells plants and greenery, you'll know that sometimes twigs or shoots will break off and land on the floor.  About 25 years ago, my mother noticed just such a plant sprig while the store employee was sweeping up, so she asked if she could "rescue" it.  He said, sure, that would be fine; she could have the little 3-inch-long broken-off plant shoot.  So she brought it home, laid it in the planter at the front of the house, covered it with soil, and promptly forgot about it.

Now, although my mother liked plants, she was never very good with them.  Either they survived or they didn't--most often it was the latter.  At least that was the case until she brought home The Sprig.  It kept growing and growing and growing.  And it is still, annoyingly, growing.  Mother, alas, is long gone and much missed but that Sprig just won't quit.

I have no idea what the plant is.  It's got dark green leaves and quite a tough woody stalk.    And it doesn't matter how much it has been cut back, it returns!  It has been weed-whacked all the way down to the soil more than once.  It has survived drought (largely because I refuse utterly to water it).  It has been through killing frost and the intense heat of a Mississippi summer.  It showed no response whatsoever to Hurricane Katrina.....unless you count the fact that it kept right on growing.  It is no longer possible to tell that there is a large long brick planter at the front of the house because it is covered entirely by The Offspring of The Sprig.

Let's be honest:  I hate the stupid Sprig.  It is, of course, no longer a sprig; it's a nightmare, but I still call it The Sprig.  If I could borrow the TARDIS just once, I'd go back in time to tell my mother to leave The Sprig on the ground at the garden center.  No doubt it would have sprouted in the trash and would have covered the entire surface of the county dump by now.

In any case, it is with disgust but with no surprise at all that I must report an incursion.  While I was vacuuming the living room yesterday, this is what I discovered growing on the INSIDE of the window.  It's The Sprig.  Obviously, it is now plotting to take over the interior of the house.  I give up.  The Sprig is obviously tougher than I am.