So here I am having my morning coffee and reading the most recent postings. Tis cloudy, but quite mild and really rather pleasant after the recent wet weather. I actually have been doing some work in the garden, clearing up the Yellow border so that I can get at the hedge behind it to prune it back in the hope of maiking it thicken out. A lovely old couple have been layering the hedges down the road, a work of art, living sculpture even. Wish I could do likewise.
However, this posting is about something else really. Chatting last evening the phrase 'wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy' was used and I got to wondering which plants I have in the garden would come into that category. I don't mean the weeds like ground elder, bindweed and couch grass etc, rather those which I have planted(or others before me) and regretted it.
Here is my list.
   1. Comfrey. We have been spraying this with weed killer for 8 years and it still pops up everywhere.
   2. Mint. Planted in buckets as we are often advised to do so, instead of running wild, it has seeded itself all over the place.
   3. Saponaria officinalis roseo-plena. Runs like bindweed and candy floss pink double flowers. Kills everything it grows through
   4.Erinus alpinus. Fairy thimbles, one of the worst seed weeds I have ever met, including chickweed. Just removed 10 buckets full from the Limestone rock garden. from one years seed!
   5.Golden hop. Grows 30 feet plus in a year, smothers everything it climbs up and leaves behind unsnappable and virtually uncuttable stems which can only be removed when they have rotted away, 3 years later.
   6.Roses. I loathe, detest and abhor roses.
I could probably add a few more but why bore my audience any further. How about you good folks? Which plants have you got which you would not wish upon your worst enemy?
PS. Perhaps as this is an allotments site I should have put Jerusalem artichokes in the list. Anyone want a ton?
Nigella, plant one and the next year you have 10,000.
Eric, what the hate for the roses?
Jerry
Got my own Ton thanks Eric! Can't give em away but they have broken up my clay soil very well!
I would put Acanthus mollis in that catorgory, as beautiful as it is, never decide to move it, I can't get rid of it!! The other one that drives me mad is Alchemila mollis, I love it, but it seeds itself into places that make it impossible to get it out! My Mum has been fighting grape hyacynth for 10 years, so have learnt from her error and now mine only appear in pots! DP
definately russian vine, mile a minute, or whatever it's called.
neighbours planted a slip of it, and it just went EVERYWHERE. they eventually (and after only 1 season) cut it off at the base. it's still brown, dead and shrivelly in their tree branches. used to come through the fence and if i cut it, it seemed to encourage it.
and leylandii. ohhhhh, don't get me started on them.
Snowberry, don't know the technical name...shall google... Symphoricarpos albus laevigatus (good stuff this internet). Was here in the garden when we moved in all over the place, and it took me months of digging and still it comes up. The roots run all over the garden.
Bugle (Ajuga), although lovely in my woodland garden, if I don't keep oiking masses of it out, eventually it will smother everything else there!
That is about it, I don't mind my Nigellas that come up year after year as they flower so early that I have pulled them out early in the summer as other things come into their own. My acanthus is a monster, which I knew, but I adore its statuesque leaves and huge flower spikes! I detest roses, always have. Dislike the scent, the scruffy habit, the pests and diseases, and to me they are funeral flowers.
I quite like Nigella. It has sowed itself everywhere in my garden - I haven't sowed any since we moved in nearly three years ago. It's now even growing in the paths. But if I don't want it somewhere, I just yank it out and bung it on the compost. More fuel for the garden.
We should be grateful of weeds as they eventually add nutrition to the garden! Or maybe I'm just too tolerant.
But having said that there is something in my pond (a grass-type thing, with varigated foliage - can't remember what it's called) that seems to be spreading itself around the pond a bit too much for my liking. I'm keeping my eye on it.
I'm not a huge fan of roses either. I have a couple, but they are certainly not my favourites. I don't quite see what all the fuss is about.
Hello all,
for me it was chinese lantern. Chap next door in his sixties, not a gardener, liked it as it was his mother's favourite. Talk about invasive! All over the shop. Digging it out of the hedge, it tunnelled into the front "lawn" (grass square) and erupted 2' from the border, our border. Hard to get at the roots amongst the hedge roots. Thankfully he paved his front driveway all the way across last year....
>:(Stag horn Sumach....I hate it, it suckers everywhere, even when you've dug out all the roots you can see...Love in a mist just needs a bit of hoeing and its gone....I don't think I'd ever buy a house with one in the garden...well there wouldn't be just one in your garden all the neighbours would have it too.
Echinachea ? it is so boring we removed ours after only 1year
quite ugly really.
I love my echinacea. I think it looks gorgeous and flowers late too. And it keeps those colds away. Each to his own, I suppose!
for me I would want them to have them all the good and the bad, let them see the beauty and maybe that way they no longer become your enemy, is why I like gardeners, not all, but the ones who share with the beauty and wonder of it all, they can never be enemies, I dont like the ones who compete and/or wreck other peoples allotments, and this does happen more often than you think, is not always young kids hanging loose, .. so guess only thing i would wish on my enemy is light and beauty.. and everyday I learn something new, like what plants I would wish on my enemies.. nice one Eric.. becus if had not had posted, i would have not known my answer.. but now I do.. so is all good...
ciaran
:-* :-* :-*
One persons treasure is another's cast away!
I loathe roses because they are disease ridden, pest harbouring, boring twigs for six months of the year. The flowers turn to mush at the first hint of rain. You have to spend hours pruning them and then there is no way of getting rid of the prunings. By the beginning of August, even on the so called disease resistant English shrub roses from a large grower the only green is the clump of aphids atop every stem. OK?
Oh and Oz, I did say plants I would NOT give away, EVEN to my worst enemy.
Laburnum-there is only one tree left and as it`s no longer needed to hang a clothes line from I am waiting for OH to go away for a day or two-tee hee.
Stephan
Why laburnum Cleo?... is it because its poisonous?
LOL Eric
Sorry, but think headline/thread title stuck in me head too much, must try and pay more attention.. I tend to speed read,, is old habit of mine, think its time for new habits, god I iz sounding like i wanna join a convent... oooer sister mary put ur habit back on ya wee minx ya ;) ;) soz couldnt help meslf.. here I go again LOL
Ciaran
:-*
Really don't like: Leylandii - admit to having planted a hedge in my first garden to hide the rail track, but have had to remove huge specimens from EVERY garden we've had since (7 to date). Also, vinca and bergenias.
Each to his own :)
Hi Val-no nothing to do with it being poisonous-it`s just so boring-two weeks of pretty flowers and then it just sits there taking up space.
Stephan
Eric, how did you manage to get such a good crop of Jerusalem artichokes?!? My crop was diabolical this year and I pulled the lot up in disgust (the tatties on the end would not have made a chip for a hungry mouse). I love MOST flowers (ahem! except chrysanths, sorry Jerry) but cannot stand floral displays in public parks with tiddly wee flowers in military rows. They make their hanging baskets lovely and loose and flowing, and yet the beds look gawdy and very unnatural. :(
Oh I see Stephan..its just that you don't see it in gardens like you used to and I thought it can't be because its toxic,because there's many plants that are.Didn't somewhere have a laburnum walk...a famous garden I think. :)
Laburnum Walks at Bodnant Gardens in North Wales and Ness Gardens on the Wirral are the two I know best.
Funny how many of these ungiveawayable plants are in my garden!
Thanks Palustris...knew there were some somewhere...lol, you haven't been given them have you.....
It has been said before, but it is funny what some people love others loathe. I would love a laburnam tree and am hoping to nab a self sown seedling from the inlaws garden when they get back from their hols. Want a Magnolia to, but I think I will have to keep on wanting!
I wandered around my patch today looking at what is still growing and I think I would add crocosmia to my short list. I do love them, and for that short while in late summer they do look fab, and the seed heads in my garden now are all bright orange and also look fab, but wow they are messy and floppy and WOW do they spread! I have them everywhere, but at least I can oik them out when they get too big. So, if I had my garden blank....I would avoid crocosmia unless it was in a big tub/pot!
Spurdie - what I dispise most are those floral pictures they do - where the different coloured flowers make up a picture of something to do with the town. You lose the beauty of the flowers when they just become a mass of colour. yuck.
hahaha, see Aqui, I love carpet bedding schemes like that. I know they are kinda cheesy, but such talent and patience getting the pics just so. I have seen several clocks made from bedding at different towns and they always bring a smile to my face. Not saying I want one in my back garden tho.
http://www.gardengatemagazine.com/design/gg_vic2.html - just in case you wanna have a go tho.
Emma - those ones aren't too bad. It's when they have pictures of, oh I don't know, windmills or the town hall or something that I start to throw a wobbly!
Grass. Mow, rake, scarify, feed, weed, aerate, pick up clippings, fix mower , and on, and on.
Really, I wouldn't be without the lawn, but it gets a bit much some times. Especially this time of year when the mower needs headlights and I need waders.
Jeremy.
re: laburnum-the laburnum walk at barnsley gardens in gloucestershire is one of the most photographed.
it was underplanted with alliums and was a sight when both were in full bloom.
was lucky enough to visit for my birthday a couple of years ago, as of course it was been sold off after Rosemary Verey's death and is now a private hotel.
;DYes I'm sure thats the one I was thinking of Kerry...I think its a pretty tree when in flower.
Go for it EJ ! Love the laburnum, and presently nurturing my 3 year old seedling, now 8 ft tall, hoping it will flower next year!
Sorry, Cleo, you're outnumbered ! What's that saying......one man's poison is another woman's nectar!......or something like that ! Haha!! ;D
My plant, Eric, would have to be Galium Odoratum ( Sweet Woodruff ) Same family as Sticky Willie ;D Very pretty, fragrant herb, but the spread ........indefinite to put it mildly!! ::)
Whilst out walking my dogs one day a couple of years ago I saw a lovely plant which I did not recognise - it looked rather like a double form of pink phlox. I nicked a cutting and potted it up, rooted quickly so put it in an appropriate place in the garden. The first year it bloomed it was a picture with these lovely large double pink heads. The next year, BOY did I pay for my sins, the b******y thing had thrown out roots everywhere. Dug it up but I am still finding shoots coming up all over the place :o
Re laburnum, we have a beautiful tree which is between two large hawthorn and in the spring it looks really lovely, although I do get fed up with pulling out all the little self-seeded trees around the garden.
Pat
Sounds like Saponaria offinalis roseo-plena, which I mentioned. Reckon that is how everybody who has it gets it and rues the day!
Quite agree about the Soap-wort......horrid bugga!
Another sow once and have for ever plant is nasturtiums...not only do they come back year after year but they're difficult to spell as well.....i had to look it up!!
You are probably right Eric - just didn't recognise it from your description as I was thinking it was a phlox. Good job I got rid of it, didn't realise it killed everything else :o
;DRobin ...I can't spell half the names and the other half I get wrong...if I don't have the garden book near I just describe it...lol. or get as near as I think and hope someone guesses right.