As I spent the (whole!) day ripping out a patch of English ivy that I, once upon a time, thought was a good ground cover for one of my rose beds, I decided that we could probably share information that might prevent others from having to do such a non-gratifying and time consuming task.
Ivy is NEVER a good ground cover for any desirable plants.
Ditto for lanium, as pretty as it seems!
Do you mean lamium, or lamiastrum? I thought lamium was a clumper?
Widely considered synonymous. It's pretty tough to kill around here - one little piece goes bonkers.
http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/archangel_yellow.htm
My mistake was not clearing out the fence line and mending my fence immediately when a dead tree fell on the fence. It made the chain link accordion, while bending the top rail. Today (finally!) I spent a couple of hours cutting down the native hazelnut, a big leaf maple sapling, several young pieces of vine maple saplings, a couple of indian plums, and a few elderberries. Heck, there may even have been a cascara in there.
All natives and all up in the last few years. I couldn't mend the fence because they were laying on what had been the top rail and growing through the chain link. The stumps are too close to the fence, so I'll paint roundup on them to stop suckering and hope that does the trick.
Next weekend, I'll replace the top rail and try to restretch the fence.
It's windy here tonight and something fell again (fortunately not on the fence). The dogs almost went through the sliding glass door trying to get out there.
Before things start to leaf out again, I have about 10 big leaf maple saplings that I need to get down this year. They're about 20-30 feet tall and only a few years old. They grow fast!
Bishops weed and vinca should not be used as a ground cover in flower beds. Use it only on banks and other places where it can do its thing.
Galium odoratum - Sweet Woodruff. Took me about 3 years to rid the property of it. I think it took lessons from the Mints!
Ah, YES! mint!
Sometimes I envy you PNW folks the ability to get out there and Do The Job in January. And sometimes I'm glad for the enforced physical vacation us snow-landers get this month. On the other hand, there is something to be said for not having to cram *all* one's landscaping chores into four months. My necessarily flat-out pace in summer makes it a little less fun.
Interesting about the ground covers. I use vinca and lamium - lamium maculatum, "White Nancy," not the more aggressive forms, though this is hardy enough - here to fill up empty spaces, until other slower-growing plants fill in. I've also used sweet woodruff, which though it gets around is not difficult to control. All so shallow-rooted, you know. Chop off what crosses the boundary, root up the rest, and bob's your uncle. What *is* a well-mannered PNW ground cover, then?
MOSS
Ha ha, my Mom (in Anchorage) is forever trying to get rid of moss! Guess it's a matter of taste!
I've had violets, strawberries as well as the BH and vinca. I have to pull the BH soon, I keep putting it off to the last and never get to it. I'm still pullin violets, vinca and moss. I like heather under most everything. A landscaper I know said all plants are ground cover. If you have enough you don't have to worry about weeds.
I have vinca under a lilac in a perennial bed and I just have to 'be the boss' about the spread. It's quite nice when it's in bloom, and is a good filler for under the shrub. I also have violets, strawberries, lamium, and sweet woodruff here and there - haven't found them to be too overpowering. Again, I am pretty ruthless in the spring about where they are allowed. Same goes for ladies mantle, which can get a bit thuggish.
I do also have a pretty large area of English ivy that I will be getting rid of soon. First plan is to dig up the whole area with heavy equipment for a re-grade, and I'm hoping I'll get most of it then. Otherwise, I guess I'll be pulling ivy up for awhile. It's very nice when you have a wedding though.
I agree that moss is a lovely addition to garden beds, and I typically just let the natives grow where they will, along with my native groundcovers that migrate up from the forest - Pacific bleeding heart, false lilly-of-the valley, couple others I don't know the names of. Ferns.
The bane of my garden is buttercups, which seem to get a stronghold just about everywhere as soon as my back is turned... I'm trying to reconcile myself to them and accept them on a small scale. We'll see.
Oh yes. Ranunculus repens. I, too, have a lot of it. It's on the noxious weed list.
Familiarity breeds contempt. :-)
Hmmm... I have finally gotten a bit more ruthless in my garden cleanup as I too have strawberries, vinca, lamium, moss, ladies mantle, mint, violets.... I will add forget me nots to the list, although I love them in the spring. We have also covered (at least) once in the past but it definitely bears repeating.... the folly of leaving the "cute" baby sword ferns in the garden as greenery. Somehow they change from a cute little baby into an almost impossible to move mammoth over night.
Everything is wonderful in it's place...you just need to set boundries and decide how hard you want to have to work to enforce them!
Yes, I also have FMN's. I do like oxalis. I have that around a hardy fushcia and it behaves its self. Sedums also make a neat ground cover. What I like best is to just put on fresh compost and rake it around. Looks like dirt and is very neat. Shows off everything.
Uh oh. I planted a sweet woodruff under a shrub 2 years ago. It seems ok now, but maybe I should reconsider. It is spreading. Just how bad does it get?
I have several sword ferns that have ensconced themselves directly under the front and back steps. They are impossible to remove without taking out the steps to get at them.
A pry bar and a hammer will work. You have to have something sharp to cut those roots. Just get the crown out, it won't regrow.
Which ones are sword ferns? (I'm surrounded by ferns, from the tiny to the gigantic.)
They're the bigger ones that stay all year long.
Polystichum munitum: http://www.rainyside.com/features/plant_gallery/nativeplants/Polystichum_munitum.html
There are a few people on DG who would like to trade them, if you have little ones.
Holly, I think the SW is naturally limiting if your ground drains well, is sunny and is dry. It goes crazy when it's in a moist shady spot.
I'm going to try the crowbar method on the sword ferns, Willow. They are creating a bit of a hazardous situation on the back stairs, growing back up between the stair treads even though I continually hack them back.
Kathy, regarding the woodruff, I sigh in despair when people talk of well drained soil, LOL. My place is plenty sunny though, and it does get dry in the Summer, so perhaps it will not cause me a huge problem.
Right. I have some in a sunny spot in clay soil and it's just barely hanging on. I was thinking more that clay soil retains water when wet and SW really likes a constant source of moisture, from what I've seen.
I have SW in an area that stays fairly moist, even in the summer, and it has behaved perfectly. My mom has some in a dry but shady section of her yard, and it has gone somewhat crazy, but not unbearably so. Strange how some things behave in some places and then go bonkers in others.
Another absolute must learned the hard way. There are "clumping" grasses and ones that aren't....beware if you plant a non-clumping variety!
Oy! Ranunculus repens is one of those get-it-out-ASAP types: It will take over an area quite agressively.
It does quitewell in dryish shade, too - the foliage/flowers are smaller, but the roots have a DNA program that requires them to occupy any & all space.
Now is the time to start on them - otherwise they sink their roots in like claws.
Katye, I seem to remember that you know something about the clumping type of grasses. Do you think you could post a list of some clumpers you know of?
I'm guessing that your mom's dry section probably gets moist and the clay helps hold that moisture in for awhile.
http://www.hcs.ohio-state.edu/hcs/TMI/Plantlist/ga_ratum.html
Liabilities
* usually melts out (dies back) during the heat and drought of Summer, even in full shade
* stems lodge (fall over) in early Summer to expose the center of the crown
* can be mildly invasive under optimum conditions, especially where moisture is adequate for Summer-long flushes of growth
Being perfect and never making any planting mistakes I have nothing to offer. LOL
If you never make mistakes, Steve, how do you learn?
I should probably not post directly after Steve as he surely will be able to list a number of my gardening faults that I am forgetting, albeit in the nicest, most helpful way possible. My biggest gardening mistakes are:
1. Having eyes that are bigger than my abilities.
2. Loving plants that are bigger than the areas available in which to plant them.
3. Continuing to forget that I actually do not have 'full sun' except for a short number of months in the year, I.e. high summer.
4. Bothering to take coleus cuttings each year, only to have them root nicely, and then languish pitifully in the greenhouse every single year.
Now, I'm probably the only one who likes my sweet woodruff. But I do cut it back twice a year. If I had a tiny lawn mower, I would simply mow it down. But due to the number of hellebores in the mix, I use grass sheers and just cut it to the ground in large swathes. It comes back with very neat green foliage and looks great. On the other hand, I have it contained in a bed that is not too big. I remember having a discussion with our Laurie about this topic last year. She had never heard of cutting it back.
That ranunculus is particularly bad on dense clay soil. I bet boiling water would kill it. much easier than getting those nasty roots out. How do they hold on so tightly??
Here's one that I'm dealing with-putting off moving something or removing it because I'm only sure that it didn't work out and haven't yet figured out what should be there and having "it" keep growing and keep getting bigger and becoming even more of a problem.
And, along with Pixy's loving plants that are bigger than she has room, not realizing exactly how wide trees would be when they got bigger and giving them enough width -planting them closer to the property line than they should have been. Not many happy solutions to that problem. :(
Also, Pixy, I found a hellebore baby in that alchemilla you gave me. What a delightful surprise. :)
I love my sweet woodruff - Redchic advised me last year to cut it back and it grew dense and controlled. It doesn't seem to get out of control in my little garden.
My biggest mistake is, being an inexperienced gardener, being afraid of yanking out a plant that I don't like or is too big for its location. Oh I have many others, like not wanting to learn all those fancy names.
I like this thread - very useful!
A mistake that I have been paying for for several years is not being "ruthless" enough in my garden. Didn't really have to worry about it when I gardened in the clay soil of Federal Way, but in my forest soil, some things go crazy. I love the natural plants (sword ferns, lady ferns, salal) and wildflowers (foxglove) in my garden. I also love the "full" look. The problem comes in when you don't reign in your plants, and all of the sudden you find a wild foxglove has shaded and killed a beautiful plant that you spent lots of $$ on. Or montbretia has overwhelmed and killed a beautiful heather. You all have given me the inspiration to get my garden under some semblance of control so that the plants that I truely value will have the opportunity to thrive. If I have to compost a pretty here and there to make that happen, then that is what has to be done. It is hard for me to do, but I have been forcing myself and I know that my babies will thank me for it.
Yes, that is hard to do. I used to try to give all of those plants away, preferring that to the compost bin. Then I realized that I don't know anyone who needs those plants, either, because after a few years in the garden, we're all in the same boat with plants like montbretia. That 'full' look that we love is so hard to maintain without losing things, even with plants that don't get out of control. Sometimes I've lost things I've planted beside a hosta or a heuchera, not exactly rampant growers.
My biggest mistakes here so far were leaving 200 plants in their pots, so many look to have rotted (it's OK, I only paid $62 at a nursery that was quitting business) ... and not doing ANY cleanup last fall because I had no ideas as of yet when winter would begin (or spring for that matter). So my garden looks like heck & there are wet piles of leaves in all the crannies.
OK I will admit a failure or two. One is leaving the Pacific NW and continuing to garden wanting all of the same species I had in Seattle. Then trying to make them go in Montana and having them die. Another is buying too much in the past and now finally slowing down I actually can have room. The joy of Montana is death is always a spring concern and it allows us to buy. The largest mistake is making my garden so large that I can never get my wife to go anywhere. She loves our home so much and its garden she never leaves.
Buying more than I can plant immediately is one of my biggest faults, too. Wanting one of everything is another mistake of mine. One little echinacea looks rather lost in my garden. W/S'ing way too many milk jugs, and then scrambling to get them planted - I will surely repeat that mistake again here shortly.
NOT LABELING or MARKING - I WILL REMEMBER , oh how many times have I been guilty of this.
ooooh, I see me in so many of your posts; where to start!
" I will remember!" is a problem for me... just walk to the end of the bed and well, you can imagine. I make labels and actually carry them out with me only to carry them back in or set them down because something else needs my attention.
Lack of focus, being new to the PNW and my little spot of heaven, I've lots of places to plant. Buy lots of plants, only to add them to the pot ghetto because some new project has begun and then have to rush madly to get them into the ground before winter strikes and I repeat dead plants in the spring.
I too want more than one of anything "new" I can try to grow here that the heat of NC would have killed.
Too many veggie starts - there is only so much room in the garden, we start so much more than we can reasonable plant and care for, let alone harvest, process and/or eat. My neighbors hide when they see me in the spring... looking for folks to take the extras! I'm starting with "school kids" for extras this year. I've roped the kids I tutor into taking some home...
Well that brings up another mistake I make every year. I think I can grow vegetables in my yard. I have never been successful. I think it is the amount of sun I get. Although recently I've begun to believe it might be my soil. But then even things in bagged soil with good nutrients didn't do well this year with all our heat, so I guess it's probably sun.
I'm not ruthless enough either. Not even close to ruthless enough. I'm going to try to convince myself that composting more benefits the whole garden (and I know it does) and keep my feeling bad about killing something under control.
I also want to try all the awesome new plants every year but don't have the space that most of you do and so I get myself into trouble faster... (eyes bigger than plot problem???? yuk, yuk) or I kill it because it (sigh) rots in a pot....... As part of getting the cool new plant, always buying ONE of something because I know I don't have a lot of room and things end up looking kind of chaotic.
I'm trying to rein myself in and rethink at a macro level this year-the overall concept and fixing things strategy. ( Attempting actual organization-I'm pretty rusty at that. ;) )
And yet, there are all those awesome seeds.......Lack of focus I guess fits me, too!
Another problem I have is is accepting plants that I wouldn't ordinarily consider that are offered by a fellow gardener because I really admire that gardener and really want to grow something they've given me in my garden. I don't like saying "No" and rejecting a gift offering. I've gotten better at that because I've decided it's better to not accept something than get it home and realize that the only place I should consider for it is the compost pile. I don't like telling someone I've killed the plant they gave me, regardless of whether it was deliberately or accidentally.
Speaking of garden cleanup, I think it's actually not raining right now. Guess I should take advantage of that to finish up a few things. :)
Melissa I was thinking about your garden soil. I too am nitrogen defficient due I think to mass planting. So I have begun to add the Milorganite to my top dress in the spring. I also add bone meal to get the bloom. So good compost and N and PO4. You probably have mineral defficiencies so I would add that at the same time.
