Overheard a rant on the bus.What ‘bastard’ things will you not have in your garden.

[florentina1]

A man behind me yesterday was ranting to his friend about “bastard lupins”Apparently his wife loves them, he hate them, and they are coming up everywhere. He was really funny, almost worthy of his own stand up routine.

For me it is fuchsia. Gladioli, hanging baskets and anything with slogans.

We have a pink flowering "thug" that DH loves but tries to take over the entire garden. I've banned it from the back garden (dug it out 5 years and and still seedlings are popping up).

Every spring, I pull up buckets of it from the front, (as in at least 6 buckets of leaves and roots before it gets started for the season), and at least twice more during the season, as it tries to expand beyond the 2 areas I allow it in - as it tries to smother everything else instead running underground. So all the bulbs, roses, ferns etc and even through the lawn.

I've no idea what it's actually called (I do veg and more recently flower bulbs, but not plants - DH is the ornamental gardener). But it is known as the thug and DH knows exactly what I mean when I say that...

Bastard sycamores. I’ve been picking out seedlings continuously (continually?) for weeks now. Death to all sycamores and their fecundity

We have 1 "non-spreading" bamboo that is fairly controlled and the spreading one is in a pot...but I dig back the non-spreading every 2nd year.

We have two large and very well established Cordylines that were decimated by the frost. Like you, we had two bare stems, as all the foliage at the crown had fallen off. DH asked advice at our local garden centre and they advised scraping back the bark to see if there is any green underneath, then cut the dead stem down to the green part, and leave them to recover. We’re now just starting to see new shoots, so it’s worth doing if you want to save them. Garden centre advised protecting the crown with loose fitting bag during the winter.

Ageism with plants now. Just when you thought you'd heard it all.

Involuntary rewilding 😂yeeeessss... I think that happened here

Bloody red and yellow tulips that I suspect have flowered from bulbs that squirrels have brought in. As I don’t grow anything red flowering at all (no exceptions) and nothing yellow flowering either (save for daffodils).

Meanwhile all of the beautiful pink, purple and white tulip bulbs that I planted in autumn 2021 were absolutely beautiful in 2022 and have come up blind in 2023. Not that I massively mind this, but those red and yellow ones are clearly giving me the side-eye.

buddleia plants - I had an irrational hatred of them anyway.

But then my neighbour put several in, suddenly decided she didn't fancy doing gardening ever again and they have grown HUGE. I spend my life battling them back from looming over my garden. She also planted Chinese lantern, which totally infiltrated under the fence an killed my lovely border. The brambles are a weekly chore to keep back.

Her partner also planted an oak tree just on their side of the boundary and a meter from our back wall. We have mentioned as its sprung up alarmingly that it will cause damage - but as her partner planted it and he is no longer around (left not dead) she gets upset every time its mentioned.

Bastard hydrangeas. Horrible dusty things that just take over. Fuschias are vile. Spanish bluebells that are on a world domination tour. Pampas grass. Anything bought by other people that they insist in putting in your garden and checking how it's doing everytime they pop round. Bastard ornament thingies. If I'd wanted my plant supports to be 6foot plastic flamingos I would have bought them myself instead of saving up for weathered steel. (This is quite therapeutic actually 😁)

Just asked DH and without any promoting he said fucking hydrangeas. Clearly we are well matched

Ongoing here - I'm into Year 15 and I'm not stopping now .

Sparsely planted flowerbeds, with acres of bare soil in between the sad-looking flowers planted a foot apart. It looks like a municipal park and it's bloody depressing.

Bastard celandine and bastard endless prolifically seeding ‘ornamental’ (ugly as sin) grass. Thank you, previous owner.

Feel a bit nervous to admit I have most of these plants in my garden and like them!

I have a wall of ivy, but it is high maintenance to keep it contained. Looks great when it's trimmed and under control, and the birds love it.

Two things I absolutely hate. Fake grass and Begonias. The latter just creep me out, the leaves look horrible. I am a big fan of living with something for a bit as sometimes you end up changing your mind or getting used to it. Not the begonias - they were everywhere when we moved to this house and I dug out every last bastard one of them.

Marigolds - the French ones.
My Dad always grew them because they were easy to grow but no one actually liked them because of their awful smell and the sheer number of stupid seeds that would fling themselves around the beds ingratiating themselves everywhere. They are also so small that a group still looks crap because of the teeny tiny foliage - useless bastards that should f-off back to the 1960's

Dad also grew sweet peas which are generally lovely and indeed his were at the beginning. His original planting was full of wonderful colours and he would harvest the seeds to use the next year and did this year after year (he was very tight). After about 10 years of cross pollination all his sweet peas were just one uniform colour of light mauve with the occasional flower defiantly coming out dark purple or white. Dad would rant and ask why only the mauve ones survived every year. I tried to explain plant genetics to him but he just didn't get it and just kept harvesting his seeds and growing them again while banging his head against the potting shed door when the bastard mauve ones popped up again!

The leaves are like serrated knife blades, so don't let him persuade you. You'll have an awful time trying to avoid the ghastly stinging paper cut injuries (or always wear gauntlets to your elbows). Just don't!

Bastarding bamboo. It's in a neighbouring garden so trying to make it into mine. I ruthlessly deal with every shoot I see but it maddens me every time. And ALL bamboos spread underground, even clumping ones - they're just slower.

Bastarding bluebells - the bulbs are about a metre underground so impossible to dig out without destroying surrounding areas, and the leaves have a waxy coating that make them repel weedkiller. Bastards!!

I'll take your bamboo, fuchsias and anything else for that matter and raise you muscari. Those bastards are the rats of the plant world. They look so sweet and innocent, don't be fooled.

God yes. They're on a mission to take over! My NDN's garden has them and I'm going to tackle them. Got rid of bastarding Japanese Anemones, muscari are up next and in her back garden, that bastarding Vinca. (She also had bastarding variegated couch grass but I fell on that bugger with the rage that was proper and due. Couch grass!!

Bastard Japanese anemone,I've been trying to get rid of it for three years.

For the sake of any garden and the future, Pampas Grass, Ivy and Bamboo.

Bamboo will NEVER die (Bamboo isn't for summer, its for the eternity of human existence)
Ivy threatens to suffocate all that comes within its reach (which left unattended is as far as it damn well likes)
Pampas Grass is just a ruthless bastard of a plant. Its boring to look it, grows wildly huge and will slice anyone who dares to challenge its position of annoyance in any garden.

So many cuts from retrieving footballs out of Pampas Grass as a child 😬

My husband's bastarding tomato's. From our tiny paved garden in our first home to our huge garden and greenhouse in our 23rd year of marriage, he believes he can grow them. He can't. He buys special soil, pots, feed. Treats them like babies, hours tieing them up and nipping out shoots. They grow, they fruit, they fail to turn red and then go black from the inside. Each winter he agrees not to do toms again, each spring he's back at it.

I'll confess to not being very keen on marigolds, but I plant them because they are brilliant at keeping the pests off my strawberries.

Nasturtiums always covered in caterpillars... yuck

Marigolds they always seem to be covered in some sort of insect.
Ivy 'cos it's a bastard

PIGEONS!!! Bastard fucking pigeons, stripped my ornamental cherry of half it's blossom, regularly shit in the little fountain and are hoovering up the grass seed I've put down to try to repair the patches in the lawn.

And ivy, and anything with thorns. But mostly those damned bastard pigeons.

I quite like marigolds and geraniums in pots but not in beds. DH detests geraniums so I like to plant a few, just to wind him up 😀

A fire pit and a garden ‘couch’. No way.

My bastard neighbour's bastard Pyracantha. I'll stop there let I get into a rant about "storing his hedge in my garden"