What do you regret planting in your garden?

[MyRabbit79]

Inspired by the current thread about the plants and weeds people are currently battling, what are the plants you've purposely sown or planted in your garden and come to regret?

For me, it's aquilegia and forget-me-nots.

I bought some aquilegia for our front garden when we moved here and it pops up everywhere, looks messy and I don't love the flowers

Forget-me-not - I sowed these from seed two years ago out the front. They're now everywhere including in the pots, gravel and back garden. Planning to pull most of it up after it's flowered this year.

So interesting reading these. I love euphorbia - it does get everywhere but in my garden is much more controllable than other plants (acanthus I'm looking at you ..).

Oh god bloody valerian. The white one still crops up even though it's been about 3 years since I brought one home and let it sow its seed... Luckily its seedlings are very distinctive so hopefully I'll eradicate it some day.

Celandine. Its currently partying a conga through my beds. Lots of leaves but few yellow flowers. I was warned whilst being given some from someone else's garden. Did I listen? Obviously not!

There is a huge sycamore on the public area near my house, I have to be so vigilant picking the seeds up, the few I miss sprout. I missed one in the alley behind the house it seemed to grow 6 feet over night. My neighbours ignore their front gardens so I end up cutting their grass just to stop the spread of weeds and the dreaded sycamore

Is it me or are there lots more sycamore seedlings the last couple of years? They're everywhere

I regret all things I planted that didn't survive. The back flowerbed should be renamed the death bed. Only the hardiest plants survive there. There is a fig and a grape vine doing well. Peonies and rudbeckia do well but not much else. Scratching my head as to what to put in this year to fill the very big gaps.

I slightly regret planting the vine where it is as in the winter when the leaves fall off it exposes a very ugly wall behind. I wish I had just put in some large bushes and focused my energies elsewhere.

A buddleia, in our first garden. It took over an entire side of the garden, despite pruning it to ground level every winter. After four years we dug it out. Little ones kept popping up for years though, it self seeds like nobodies business!

Wild strawberries and mint that previous owner planted gets everywhere. I have a challenging garden as passion flower, Russian vine and acanthus have died or struggled.

also hardy geranium which the previous owners planted had self seeded everywhere I dug up about 20 clumps and planted along a bank that has rather pretty but invasive wild flowers, that I will never eradicate so they can romp away over there.

i also have a clump of hog weed which will never go so I’ve put foxgloves, some geranium and camissas there too so they can all fight it out !

I have euphorbia sprouting everywhere - must have been planted by the previous owner.

Thank you for the tip re wild garlic and rabbits - I planted some well away from the house but may now plant some in another area where the rabbits are causing havoc.

My error is nasturtiums - one pack of seeds and they grow everywhere now and I could enjoy them if they weren't always covered in black bugs.

Nothing seems to spread and self-seed where we are, the cold wet winters on heavy clay must slow them down. I've even planted mint in the beds and still never have enough of it. I'm always waiting for it to grow back so I can pick more. I regret planting so many dwarf apple trees at my allotment based on reading the descriptions rather than tasting the apples. Most of them are mediocre in flavour and don't produce enough apples to be worth the space all year round but I can't seem to bring myself to dig out the established trees and I always think maybe they'll crop better next year. They then decide to miss a year or will be full of caterpillars or something.

I love pulling on a nettle root (they’re strong enough you can rely on them not to break) and watching a nettle 6 ft away slowly get shorter and then disappear into the ground before reappearing on the other end of your root

Dratted Euphorbia and crocosmia.

Oh, and borage. Planted it once in purpose for the bees and 7 years later I’m still battling seedlings everywhere.

I’m a bit concerned about the wild garlic I planted, reading this thread. I love it and cook with it all the time, and the hens go wild for it, so I thought it was a good plan.

The three stages of gardening

1. buy vigorous plants and be thrilled at your gardening prowess when they grow
2. realise it’s all rather to chaotic even for you, and start pruning
3. admit defeat and realise that some plants will need to be eradicated completely

The three stages take about 10 years to get through, so if you move house regularly you may never reach stage 3

Small alliums. They are so invasive and I can’t get rid of them.I dig up the bulbs but they are so tiny and if you miss some of them they multiply. They are all over my garden

Is it me or are there lots more sycamore seedlings the last couple of years? They're everywhere

We've always had loads, despite not being able to see any sycamores from my garden! Maybe a tree vaguely near you had grown so you're now in its drop zone.
They're easy enough to get rid of though.

I’m loving this thread, it’s amazing what doesn’t grow in one garden is a menace in another.
My regret was planting Houttuynia cordata spreads everywhere and looks like mini Japanese Knotweed. I pull it out whenever I see it popping up.
I do tend to leave other self seeded plants, I like a random garden. But hate Ivy!

Grasses

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat great image of a massive cod in my head now 😂i recommend with anchovy pasta, but maybe there are only so many anchovies….

I have a hardy perennial growing everywhere in my garden. I cannot remember planting it ever but I think I must have done at some point way back. I have tried to identify it and the best I can come up with is Bishop's Goutweed. Mine has pink flowers in Summer. It fills in the borders and looks good until it becomes rampant and then I have to cut it back hard. It eve grows back if I put the lawn mower over it. It chokes everything else out and next to the peonies it mirrors their height. It is a beast with massive roots.

that sounds like Ground Elder. The only way is to dig it up, don’t mow it as it will encourage the roots to grow. Cut off the flower heads to stop seeding and then constantly dig it up. I have a small patch, I have short periods of digging to remove it. Once almost removed Crainsbill geraniums will swamp the roots put.

We have muscari on one side, Spanish bluebells on the other side (both here before we moved in) and I love them both, they don't spread but do fill the entire borders, I do clear the bulbs out a bit some years. I have vinca major on ones side too, but it seems to have died right back in recent years.

Aquilegia and forget me nots self-seed everywhere especially around the patio, but again I love both and like a cottage garden look so not a problem there either.

I have a lot of self-seeders at the allotment too, cosmos and borage particularly, but both have such distinctive leaves it's easy to spot the seedings and pull most of them out. I also use alpine strawberries as ground cover, they are very easy to clear a space when you need it and other self seeding flowers pop up in amongst them.

I have just planted some wild garlic in a shady spot, maybe I will come to regret that but nothing else really grows there so we'll see,

My biggest hates are from next door, there is a high fence but they have planted lots of vigorous climbers that come up and over it every year, including clematis and rambling rose which grow into a tree very close to their side of the fence and the branches reach over our garden towards the tree in the middle of our garden (narrow gardens), so the climbers get into it and it's all too high to tackle easily.

Yes that's it ! Ground Elder. There is a short time frame when it actually looks good and people ask me what it is ( I know now) but when it has flowered it becomes rampant.
I had a feeling it had to be dug out @Beebumble2 Thanks !

Tree Spinach. Planted one small plant in a raised bed, it got everywhere! It was even sprouting on the kerb/pavement on the road outside my back garden! We moved out 5 years ago and when we drive past the house you can still see it in the road!

Crocosmia and Iris.