Biggest Gardening Disaster

[Trueloveneverdies]

I’ve always wanted a wedding cake tree. The year before last I found the perfect one. Beautifully spaced even branches and a lovely size. I bought a stupidly expensive huge terracotta pot to plant it in and was absolutely chuffed with it. I went on holiday for a week and my Mum watered it to death.

Every time I look at the pot I see the ghost of the wedding cake tree! Does anyone else have any gardening disasters?

A neighbour's son was working on a farm and offered me half a load of manure for 25 quid - this was about 40 yrs ago.

On the day, he arrived with tractor and trailer, started to tip the contents over my hedge and blithely said "We had a whole load, so we've given it to you for the same price."

I watched in horror as half my back garden filled up with dung. After they'd gone, I attempted to dig out my rhododendron "Moonlight".

When I finally got to the bottom of the dung heap, there was my beloved plant, split down the middle. No, it didn't recover.

I don't realise people would plant stinking bob, it grows every where here and is evil 😂

Me as well.

I finished chemo in August and rads in September.

I really struggled after my treatment ended. Some time before Christmas I thought if I push myself to plant some troughs I'll have something to look forward to. You know it seems symbolic of a new start and new growth in the spring etc.

I bought pink and white tulips, mixed hyacinths and grape hyacinths on a holiday I travelled to by train and bus. Dragged them all home.

All the tulips except 3 were eaten by squirrels. One of the surviving tulips was yellow. The squirrels also ate half the hyacinths. I had dragged these heavy troughs indoors to save what was left. The grape hyacinths weren't the vibrant blue I was expecting from the packet. They were a disappointing murky light blue.

It felt like a sign from the universe. At least it seems funny now!

go honeysuckle

My garden is already 90% honeysuckle. I can grow that, no problem. In fact, it's making a bid for the washing line already, and it's only April.

Clematis can be an arse. Grew hops this year - up a rope.
Grows like the clappers.

I’ve bought 50 bulbs of red tulips, I think about 7 come out!

The squirrels seem to love my bulbs too - even some of the daffodils (which I thought were poisonous).

Almost exactly the same circumstances, but my thug was euphorbia...

Mind you, my slug sanctuary does well every year... 🙄

...and the worst of it is, whenever I dig it up, I HAVE to sing 'euphoooorbia' to the tune of Loreen's Eurovision song 'Euphoria'... 😫

I had a beautiful Convolvulus cneorum in pride of place. Healthy and happy but outgrew it’s spot with it’s beautiful foliage and pretty flowers.
Moved it during a sunny week in January . It’s dead. I am bereft.

@Grazyna80 @WearyAuldWumman

On the other hand when bulbs are successful they seem to last forever.

I've been in my house nearly 25 years and the previous owners bulbs come up every year and every year I think about the value for money those bulbs have been!

French lavender is my nemesis. This time I put pots in the conservatory this winter.

Took it out a couple of weeks ago and gone. So bad! I love the look of it but keep mucking it up.

My gardens have always been light soil or boulder clay and I could never grow moisture loving plants even though I enriched the soil etc they all died. Imagine my excitement when my partner bought a house with a stream and bog at the bottom of the garden as evidenced by the most gigantic gunnera in situ (10 metres in diameter with leaves 8 ft tall). Absolute heaven! I’ve made him a gardener now 😂 When we started planting we found all these old plant labels of the plants that the previous gardeners had planted - it was like a plant graveyard 🥲

Bamboo...

If you're planting them all in the same area the if the first had clematis wilt it may still be in the soil. Or you may not be planting them deep enough. They should be planted deeper than you think. Also they don't like full sun on their roots/dry roots, but like their tops in the sun.

We have ground elder and every year I attempt to weaken it but to no avail.
Apparently you can eat it but I've never really fancied it.

Herb Robert is a weed in my garden..no idea why anyone would plant it!

I have also always failed with French Lavender. It looks nice the first year, bedraggled the second and then dies. English Lavender has been much more successful.

I've never managed to successfully grow Heather despite trying in different gardens in different spots.

English lavender follows the trajectory of your French for me.

Neither French nor English lavender has ever survived a winter in my garden.

I complied with all reasonable requests and they grew - one to about six feet high, and then died. I've put them all over the garden and followed all the planting requirements - and they've all died, except the pathetic specimen which, every year gives me hope but only gets to two feet high and one bud. I'm not going to bother any more because the birds love pecking the buds off as soon as they form so I'm not going to get any wonderful flowers anyway. Just a stick, two leaves and then death.

A friend gave me a plant that also grows in ponds, it's a multi coloured leave with a weird smell but I'd just moved and planted it at the top of my garden. I think the common name for it is chameleon plant. Houttuynia cordata 'Chameleon'

It was an absolute horror, I couldn't get rid of it, it just kept spreading and spreading.

I moved house and I have no idea whether it is still in the garden but every time I see this damn thing in garden centres or in gardening magazines, it should definitely have a massive warning about HOW BLOODY INVASIVE IT IS!

Yes, oddly, given my inability with clematis, and the patchy nature of my bulbs, I can grow Herb Robert like nobody's business.

I have this running through the afore mentioned dwarf bamboo. Double trouble! They fight it out every year. With the additional bonus of my cat coming in stinking like beetroot when he has been hiding under it.