If I'd only known

[Enb76]

Which plant would you recommend that other people never plant?

I have a few and every time I seem them for sale in gardening centres I have the urge to burn and destroy.

Mine are:

Acanthus Spinosus (Bears Breeches). Never plant this unless you have many, many acres, spreads by rhizome. This is a thug of a plant which is almost impossible to kill off.

Passiflora (Passion Flower). Grows while you watch it, one evening you'll go to bed and by the next morning it will have taken over your world. It will creep into the smallest gap and is almost impossible to kill.

Sapponaria Officinalis (Soapwort) - free seeds like a bugger, doesn't die.

Most of them have the common sin of being difficult to kill off - there are other plants that I would never recommend purely because I've not been able to keep them alive but that is a much longer list.

I have a horribly invasive perennial weed in my garden called green alkanet. I see it everywhere locally, but I don't think it is that common nationally. It has blue flowers (a little bit like borage) but it has incredibly deep roots and spreads like buggery. It is also very irritating to the skin.

Thankfully I have removed at least 90% of it from our garden, and I keep digging it up whenever I see it. It has taken loads of work.

Now, imagine my surprise when I bought an otherwise excellent book called "Planting for Shade" or something along those lines, where this plant is recommended! Yes, it grows in shade, but why would anyone buy it, let alone recommend it?!

I don't mind a buddleia, I have to say . I really like the smaller buddleia Buzz which comes in an indigo and doesn't get much bigger than about 3 feet.

Borage won’t fuck off out of my garden. Opium poppies too.

I’m at peace with it now though.

Now, imagine my surprise when I bought an otherwise excellent book called "Planting for Shade" or something along those lines, where this plant is recommended! Yes, it grows in shade, but why would anyone buy it, let alone recommend it?!

Beware of plants which will grow in difficult positions where little else may thrive - something that's charming in a woodland may go bonkers if let into a garden with good soil, water and sunshine.

I agree with this Errol. I have a bed that is between a tall fence and a shed. The gap between the shed and the fence is about 4 feet deep, and 2 feet of that is gravel path, leaving a bed of 2 feet deep by about 15 feet long. I can see the whole of the bed from parts of the patio, so I am looking to fill the bed and put climbers. It is east facing, but because of the shed, gets very very little direct sunlight. I would estimate maybe about an hour a day. So when I've looked for plants, I have assumed that it is 'complete dry shade'.

The book has been really helpful, but some of the plants recommended are very invasive for the reasons you say. I've decided on ferns, euphorbia, spring bulbs, foxgloves and climbing hydrangea and will leave it at that.

Sorry to derail.

I'd have said that was on-topic - and that judging from other people's comments you might want to have second thoughts about the euphorbia!

I like Euphorbia but you have to be careful about which ones you get - some are totally evil! I have Euphorbia x martini ‘Ascot Rainbow’ which is very well behaved.

May I add St John’s wort to the list? Bloody thing turns up all over my garden (I never planted any of it!).
Also bamboo (previous owner 40 years ago, can’t get rid, invades everywhere), ditto lemon balm and mint.
But there must be something odd about all your Crocosmias - maybe they go rampant down south, but up here in Scotland mine have stayed in the same demure clump for 36 years! They’re a beautiful flame colour in late summer, and cheer up the garden at the end of the season.
My biggest gripe is a weed, not a plant. Sodding indestructible ground elder. I’ve bought a flame thrower this year. (Evil cackle...!)

Love this thread

I'm trying to think what's proved a nuisance in my garden. I did a daft thing of encouraging the resident ivy to grow up things when I first moved in for instant privacy! I even bought a gold variegated plant from a posh garden centre for a bit of variety
I've since chopped it down and done some backbreaking work digging out a huge root. Oops.

Surprisingly I'm receiving lots more wild birds since the ivy has gone. I thought birds were supposed to like it?!

I killed quite a few of those £1.79 supermarket passionflowers. One minute they were flourishing and the next? Dead. Not sure what got them - they were watered reasonably in a well draining bed and had plenty of sunshine and a fence to ramble up. I finally took some cuttings from a neglected plant in an alleyway, rooted them and now have a rampant specimen. Fortunately I can chop it right back and it bounces back.

Clematis hate me. I've given up.

A relative kindly gifted me a buddleia but it didn't have the maximum height on the label. It's shot off into the sky. I stupidly rooted a cutting so I have two of them
I do like the flowers (these are pale lilac mind, I prefer the darker varieties), the privacy and the wildlife potential. The crispy brown flowers are very annoying and I'm going to have to fill the green bin with them as they're far too big.

I can't seem to get poppies to grow.

I'm guilty of planting creeping jenny into the front of containers and baskets as I like the spill effect. I've found some in a faraway flowerbed whoops! Dug up with as much root as possible but I expect more to flourish.

I can't believe the price of foxgloves in garden centres

Lemon balm. It returns bigger and badder each year and there’s so little use for it. I was warned when I first planted the bugger though!

I actually love Alkanet. I bought some seeds for a different type of with indigo flowers called Anchusa

I love my lemon balm!
Fantastic plant, the babies are easy to pull up and the prunings smell good.
Bees love the flowers too

Lemon balm, mint, borage: all turn up where you aren't expecting them...

And passion flower is the devil - you can practically watch it growing on a summer's day rustle just like in rhubarb growing sheds

And a pieris japonica (flaming forest, I think) that got to thirty feet tall surprisingly speedily.

Jasmine, though - only my winter jasmine ever comes to anything.

But there must be something odd about all your Crocosmias - maybe they go rampant down south, but up here in Scotland mine have stayed in the same demure clump for 36 years!

I'm in Scotland too!. But I look at my neighbours well behaved clump of Lucifer, and I think - why does mine ( not Lucifer, smaller but more cunning) go so crazy in my garden, just across the street?

And why don't the slugs decimate it, like they deimate everything else? Even Astrantia, which is supposed to be slug unfriendly.

I'm actually liking the idea of the mint/lemon balm/borage combinations. Sounds like it would smell wonderful.

Ivy. I bought a tiny ivy plant from the garden centre when we first moved into this house. I planted it near our hedge and forgot about it. Now it has taken over. I try to pull it out wherever I see it but it still pops up all over the place.

Yy to alkanet, mint and lemon balm. It appears 20m away at regular intervals.

I love verbena-ours is taller than me. It died for a few years then it came back. It fascinates me how plants do this. Our valerian was the same.

Great thread! I love passion flower - we've moved house recently and I had one there, but it was v self-contained as it was growing on a small sunny wall. I've brought a cutting with me and planted it out a few weeks ago but this time next to the garden fence - so I'll be watching now to check it's not taking over everything!

Meanwhile we've just dug up a huge - approx 10ft - buddleia from our new garden - ugh. They look so scruffy and weed-like to me, I was so glad to get rid of it.

This is a good thread to use while planning the new garden!

I planted some bronze fennel with misty-eyed visions of getting some deep red astrantia peeping through it.....it's now 6 feet tall and has spread thuggishly over the whole bed. It looks ridiculously out of place. My raspberries have escaped into the field and almost pulled the fence down.
Remembers fondly when my garden was just gravel.....

Does anyone like pampas grass?

Swingers?

@gareth 😂😂

gareth
Awful stuff.

Pmsl remember pink pampas grass?
So 70s
I remember cutting my hand on one of the leaves

Not Pampas but we have this god awful ornamental grass which has self seeded from a neighbouring garden. I’m forever picking out seedlings but in a few places it has taken over. Nasty stuff. I am paying DS to dig it out for me this summer.