Opinions on alchemilla mollis?

[Falcon1]

I've shelled out for a garden designer who is encouraging me to incorporate alchemilla mollis into the scheme. It just looks like a weed to me! Also, I've heard that it has a tendency to take over flower beds.

Would be good to get your opinions. I'm pretty clueless about gardening. I'm looking for a low maintenance garden but also want it to be attractive!

Thank you.

It’s a lovely easy plant that will grow almost anywhere. If you don’t want it to self seed then cut off the flowers move they have gone over and before they set seed.

But there are hundreds of plants that will grow in your garden, you don’t have to have one you don’t like .

Fresh green leaves in spring, with soft hairs that hold drops of water after rain. Lime green flowers, really good for contrasting in flower arrangements. Cut back hard in summer for another crop of new leaves & flowers later in the year. Tough, hardy - what's not to love!? ...OK, seeds around if you let the flowers go over, but then you get even more of the lovely things!

I love it, DH isn't keen. For a plant that will grow anywhere, it does, surprisingly poor in our garden, even though it's in an ideal spot for it.

We thought we'd give it one last chance this year and it was a pretty poor specimen, so we're replacing it next year.

I love its frothy green flowers and think it's foliage is lovely.

I like it, MIL doesn't. Perhaps ask the designer to suggest suitable alternatives.

Dull dull dull.

OK, nice with dew on it.

Seems like it splits opinions then! I did ask the garden designer for alternatives. She suggested euphorbia epithymoides but she is very insistent that alchemilla mollis will work best with the overall scheme. Hmm...

I like it - I don't like the euphorbia alternative though.

I like it, but it's your garden. If this is the best plant for the scheme but you don't like it, then maybe she's got the design wrong? You're paying her to create a design that works for you, so she should have spent some time talking through the options, your likes and dislikes and what kind of garden you want. If she's come up with a design that doesn't tick your boxes, then she's being a bit precious to just insist that this is the best plant.

Think about letting her plant up her design as is, you can always dispense with the alchemilla later if you feel its a bad fit. She has an overall vision for the whole of the planting and to take out one element may throw out the balance of it so that it never feels quite right.

I think it’s really ugly and would never have it in my garden.

I feel the same way about euphorbia. Yuck!

Personally, if I was paying a garden designer and she was insisting on something I really didn’t like I would br telling her no once or twice, if I heard it again then I would be firing her.

Her job is to design gardens FOR clients, to THEIR taste, in a professional way.

It's not my cup of tea and I agree with pp, you shouldn't have to have plants that you dislike in your garden. You're the one who'll be looking at it every day - and paying for its inclusion to boot - and it will grate on you until you go mad and pull it up.

(I do like the leaves and the way they hold drops of water, but that's about it. That greeny yellow shade of flowers isn't to everyone's taste though, and most Euphorbias are very similar, plus they have nasty sap.)

I like alchemilla. Never seen alchemilla mollis, for all I know, just vulgaris. I suppose mollis is a bit larger-leafed?

It's also a healing herb, so that's one advantage.

I wouldn't plant it for the blossoms, but I do think the foliage would make a nice background for more colourful flowers.

Have you looked at using heuchera instead. I find they have more interesting leaves and don’t self deed like alchemilla

I love it.
It looks great in most flower arrangements, but I love it best with pale pink roses. Actually I love it best growing in the garden.

I love it. I love euphorbia too, but the sap from that is a blistering allergen so much better off with alchemilla.

It’s the bane of my (gardening) life. I loathe it and therefore it grows with gay fucking abandon all over my garden.

I wouldn't have any euphorbia in the garden with children around. It's nasty on the skin and if they rub their eyes... [shudder]

In fact it is referred to as alchemillafuckingmorris here.

No bloody way! You'll never ever get rid of it. It can't be contained!

Meh- I just find it boring, done to death, and it can be invasive as it's normally such a good doer. It looks great in older coffee table books on gardening where the photo is taken early in the morning and the leaves are spotted with dew or after the rain, but in gardens I've had, no, less of course you are into lying on soggy ground worshipping the alchemilla The yellow flowers just lack presence for me, and the leaves are ....so-so.

Do your own homework instead on an alternative for the location (RHS Plant Finder will help you) and get it planted - after all you're paying!

I like it, but have it planted on the edge of a wall at around waist height so I can see the detail close up, and it can't spread very far either. More compact and less invasive are Alchemilla erythropoda and
Alchemilla alpina. Personally I like the acid green colour but didn't have euphorbias when my DC were small. If you don't like it, don't include it in your scheme.