Plants You Can No Longer Grow.

[SpaghettiMeatballs]

Does anyone else have plants they used to grow really well that now resist their best efforts?

We moved a few years ago. We only 5 miles down the road so hardly a change of climate. The old house was a new build with horrid, shallow soil but my lupins grew beautifully.

Fast forward to new house which is much older with decent soil, much better aspect etc and I haven't had a lupin flower yet. Garden is looking good and things are growing quickly apart from my pathetic lupins. Same thing happened the past two years.

Not going to do them again but just wondered if anyone else has had a similar experience with something that they just can't seem to grow anymore?

Well it's looking like I won't be growing onions and garlic anymore. I've just lost a crop to leek rust and last year I had white rot. Everything I've overwintered at the allotment has died or become diseased. Gutted

I have had beautiful garlic in the previous 2 years :(

I can't grow lupins either - the slugs just tear them to shreds within hours. You can literally see them vanishing in slow motion.

I do think that micro-differences in soil, pH, microbiology etc can make a huge difference, even across a few metres. Plants that will thrive in the lighter shade on the left hand side of my garden struggle in the deeper shade of the right hand side! I've just moved a deciduous viburnum from the middle to the edge and it has gone from looking very sorry for itself to bursting with health and vigour.

I can grow rosemary now and that makes me very happy
Neighbour in the old house was a gardener and he couldn't make it thrive there either.
I would like a magnolia but I am not convinced as none of the ones nearby look terribly happy.

I think that's the key isn't it countess to look at what grows well around you? There are a couple of really serious gardeners in my village so I have a good nose at their front gardens when I go past!

That sounds sad blackheart. At least I don't use my lupins when cooking so I don't miss them that much!

I think so, Spaghetti. Dh and I decided yesterday that the way forward is to shamelessly copy planting schemes from our local National Trust property!

I've never been able to hold onto Osteospernum..I bought yet another one last year, it did half heartedly flower and I have just removed its dead stalk. It doesn't help my neighbour up the street has a whole bank of it.. I did have a little sulk when I came home after seeing hers and realised I had lost 5 plants in one border in the last year

We have a soakaway and I think this makes the ground just too wet

Last year was quite a bad year gardening wise...only the potatoes were succesfull..the rest were an expensive failure

Are you sure they are the same osteospermums oldraver - because some varieties are perennials that are tough as old boots (e.g. O. ecklonis and jucundum), and others are basically half-hardy, which basically means they are annuals almost everywhere. They can look surprisingly similar! So it might not be you - it could be that they are really different plants!

I grow veg and I always find that at least one thing has a bad year. Either my mistake or just bad look with the weather and associated pests

I have similar thoughts when visiting a NGS near us countess.

I know exactly the ones you mean oldraver. Neighbours have those. They look like they just casually self seed in their garden.

I have bought some off a guy who has a huge stand on our tiny market.

I'm wondering if they are not labelled correctly

OP...Everytime I drive past I have a mix of adoration for them...especially when they react to the sun or lack of it...and a sort of scowl that mine are not as nice.

Still....this years poppies look lie they will be a good crop....I just stopped OH from strimming them as he thought they were weeds

I have been known, on such occasions, to bang fearlessly on the door, compliment the person in glowing terms on their display, and then cheekily ask for a cutting.

I think most of the neighbours have me down as a harmless eccentric. One of them did do a double take when I bought an axe the other day, however, so maybe not.

Shove..the house in question has sought planning for an extension over this part of the garden (just a 4ft ish strip)...I am keeping my eyes out for the builders moving in

The lady has already taken out a huge gorgeous hedge of a prickly red bushes