If this stuff gets too thick can load up the lawn mower(hard to cut,48″ deck just about bogs the motor down).

Gosh, I have this in my garden, too. It has completely engulfed my gardenias, also, almost to the point of killing it. I pulled them out by hand. I hope I was in time to save my small gardenia plants. They are sticky, as you said. Thanks for identifying them.

Looks like Narrowleaf Vetch Scientific Name – Vicia sativa L. Family – Leguminosae Annual or short-lived perennial with reclining or climbing stems. Leaves alternate, compound with three to nine pairs of leaflets. Leaflets at the tip modified into a simple or branched tendril which enables plant to climb. Leaflets very narrowly elliptic to oval, usually longer than broad. Flowers blue, pale lavender or purple. Flowers in leaf axils, stalkless to long-stalked, one to two. Fruit a stalkless or short-stalked, flat pod with six to twelve seeds. Reproduces by seed. Found in turf, pastures, moist to wet woods, waste areas and fields. Occurs throughout the United States. Found worldwide in the temperate regions. Native from Europe into Russia. from source http://commodities.caes.uga.edu/turfgrass/georgiaturf/WeedMngt/grsweedpages/Vicsa.html

Looks like and sounds like the nature of Vetch. Nasty pest in the shrub and perennial beds. Cows like it and would probably enjoy ruminating among your perennials. Check out this previous Q&A to Walter http://www.walterreeves.com/gardening-q-and-a/purple-vetch-identification/ Common vetch has a less showy bloom and seems to be the greater pest in W.Georgia. It can be managed with fall preEmergent applications.