Best good do-ers / thugs!

[Reluctantadult]

Is it new, or is gardening mostly trying to blast the things that do well, and coax the things that don't?! I've spent all weekend pulling out bind weed, wild clematis (is it travellers joy?), periwinkle and ground elder. Then lamenting the hot bed's patches of bare earth, dead honeysuckle, dead deutzia... What are your reliable sunny bed thugs that can compete with the crazy?!

Pulmonaria. But it's prone to mildew 😢

Need a blinkin edit button 🙄

Oh yes good suggestion, that's lungwort isn't it.

Persicaria- Ypu can have some of mine. Epimidium ditto.

Thank you, I don't know this pair!

Is it new, or is gardening mostly trying to blast the things that do well, and coax the things that don't? Yes, that’s exactly what gardening isand always has been.

yes, wild clematis, Clematis vitalba, is Travellers’ Joy, or Old Man’s Beard.

I would suggest you don’t plant anything permanent until you know you’ve got rid of all the Ground Elder roots. Or you could try this, from Beth Chatto

Marjoram. You can eat it, the bees love the flowers, the thing thrives on neglect, and it spreads everywhere.

My Solanum Crispum will climb up and over anything in its way.

My Echinops that does not cope well with shrubby things that reach up over it, but will grow up through anything non-shrubby.

I don't know where you are in the country but having had a few shrubs die this summer doesn't mean that they won't thrive in normal summer weather.
The forecaster this morning said that we shouldn't expect a hot summer like this for years.

Sedum, copes with anything. Echinops.Dahlias,if you can protect from slugs when young. But this year has been unusually hot and dry. Even crocosmia, which is a weed in my garden, and comes from the grasslands of Africa, has turned up its toes.

I live in a wet part of the country so not a lot of sun. Soil is poor and stony. I have rhodies, deutzia, variegated privet, buddleia, azalea, cornus, pink flowering hawthorn, kolkwitzia, viburnum, wild fuchsia some bush roses.
Herbaceous plants - don't do so well, the free draining soil can get too dry so they go over quickly.

I stuck a handful of nasturtium seeds in a bed last year, and booof, they went mental! And of course they self-seeded, so came back again this year. I've actually had to pull a few out.

Interesting about pulmonaria - I have two next to each other - one is in fine health, the other is collapsing with mildew. And yes, my crocosmia died too.

Give the bed loads of well rotted manure once you've got rid of the perennial weeds. That feeds the plants and improves water retention.