Banished

Plants, that is!

I decided to banish a few more this year from my garden. In no particular order, they are Eupatorium, spiderwort, sweet autumn clematis (ducking), clary sage.

Last year I banished spiderwort, clary sage, rudbeckia, goutweed, variegated vinca.

The year before I banished spiderwort, rudbeckia, goutweed, ajuga.

I keep changing my mind on some of my banishees, tho. I allow seedlings and newly sprouted plants to grow back.

Curious: what plants have you banished (not including weeds!), then allowed to return? What ones did you banish then re-purchase?

I banished the volunteer tomato seeds in my flower cutting garden and then somehow a few snuck in when I wasn't looking. Once they had little tomatoes on them I didn't have the heart to pull them out. Now I have Zinnias and tomatoes.

I banished my Money Plants. Might banish my obedient plants next year. As well as my Geum. Going to get rid of my Blackberry Lily, it got rust or something this year. And definitely will never plant love-lies-bleeding plants ever again! Too tall and gangly! I hate having to stake!! Been doing that with Glads and Hibiscus.... but I think they're worth it.

Blackberry Lily probably has leaf spot disease, from muddy water splashing on the leaves...unsightly but not fatal.

I banished Brugmansia last year. They are back in force this year. Last year was a summer long drought. They took too much water, fertilizer, and room. The hanging-heads-down flowers were a bit depressing. They were invested with red-spider-mites. My brug-friends stocked me up again with seeds and cuttings. Too much water this year, but no pests! Plants were set back by the cold May and June weather. But, flowers were spectacular, and fragrant. A very select few will be overwintered, and some very special seeds started.

Celia, take away the blackberry lily and we have the same list. I've never had the black berry lily.

Lupey, why spiderwort? I love mine.

Jim I have seeds for the Blackberry Iris if you want some.

I'm with Jim: why the spiderwort? I love mine, and it makes a lovely back of the border plant for a narrow woodland area.

I'm trying to banish lemon balm but it continues to show up everywhere. I'm also trying to 'tame' brazilian verbena to just one location. Same with Artemisia 'Silver King'.

Gooseneck loosestrife! It is taking over.

Calalily send me your goosenecks - I'll be happy to have them! :) Let me know if you want something to trade?

Perennial sweet pea. It took over both of my beds and prevented other perennials from coming up. I still have a few spots where it is still coming up.

Lupi - sweet autumn clematis - got to keep mine as it grows over a trellis and still have not large trees - it's the only shade we have! Nepati cat mint is going but don't know how to get it all, stachys will be pulled up but know it will return - never knew it was that aggressive. I'll do the same with the hyssop.

I'm trying with the goutweed but it's winning so far. The variagated has escaped the confined area I planted it in and I accidently imported some of the plain ( talk about a plant with NO redeeming features) with some ferns I was given and it is trying to take over my shade garden with a vengence. Cleome will not stop self-seeding and the thorns bite me when I try to yank them out( I always wait too long and they get huge!!)I have ivy that I yank out every year. Lemon balm was always pretty easy for me to keep confined til the last year and now I'm finding it everywhere-at least it smells good when you pull it!! I also made the mistake of planting Campsis radicans vine along the edge of my garden with visions of hummingbirds flitting in and out of it- so far few flowers, no hummers and tons of sprouts in my garden- I chopped out the main vine and sprayed the sprouts but so far they still look disgustingly healthy and green!! Is there any hope for really getting rid of these thugs (without just moving away in the middle of the night?)MW

Janie, I sent you an email if you want some of this loosestrife, just let me know!
My friend gave me some Houttuynia cordata and some hardy begonias. She warned me that they had taken over her gardens. They didn't do much in my dry shade. They are barely surviving! She also gave me some white Chinese asters. Now those might start to be a problem in a few years, but they are so pretty in the fall when they bloom.

I wish I could banish my 4 O'clocks and Maypop Passion flowers.
The 4 O'clocks are taking over my front garden and the Maypop is taking over not only my yard but my neighbors as well, the more I pull up the more I find.

Why banish spiderwort? Well, in my sunny front border of loose, extra fertile loam, it spread so far so quickly and muscled out so many of my other perennials that it was quickly banished to the back, full dense shade, heavy clay, where it is nicely well-behaved. Still pull up spiderwort plants weekly from my front border (after 3 years)!

Same with the gooseneck loosestrife: banished from the front garden every week, happily contained in the back in dense shade, with heavy clay.

You know, all these plants should come with big warning signs and good recommendations on how to keep them confined to their own place! They have their good points (why else would we buy them?)

Perhaps:

Buy at your own risk!

Beware the Space Invaders ;D

Great plant to cover lots of acres in no time flat!

Good plant if you want exercise from ripping it up weekly!

Lupy... Your comments on spiderwort and gooseneck loosestrife are a good example of WHY we should ALL use the PDB, both to input personal experience, and to check out plants before buying/planting.

I got a gooseneck loosestrife last year at the RU and doubt I checked the PDB before planting. (I just checked, and you had posted negative comments on gooseneck loosestrife... good for you, and shame on me for not checking!)

Banishment here is a tenuous thing here - one appeal and if it's not back where it was, it's back somewhere else. I have such sympathy for tenacity.

I did banish the Helleborus foetida to under the forsythia, where it appears to have met it's demise. I am TRYING to banish the volunteer hollyhocks to another place, they were very happy where they were behind the house, but we do need to get in and out the back door! I would love to banish the nasty old flowering spurge, but that is an impossiblity. Too many little roots left just waiting for me to turn around so they can pop up.

I banished boston fern which had taken over and didn't look well when their leaves dried out....they are back. Also a Fortnight Lily...impossible to banish, so many seeds in the soil, they come back like weeds. Also mint, and oregano and passion flower vines (with no flowers)
Maybe I should have banished, but I didn't have the heart to do it... a cherry tomato, carrots, zucchini, basil that is growing in my new daylily bed out front. I had used my own homemade compost in.
Margie in SJ

I tried banishing soapwart but it is growing in so many places there is not a posibility of ever getting it all. The stuff grows from the tiniest piece of root.

I am banishing Aloe Vera from the back South-East facing bed, which I planted last year. It just doesn't look good. =(

Now, I don't know what I'll do with all the babies the potted grandmother plant keeps making. I used to give them away to the customers at my Dad's store, but that's gone now. O well, if they end up compost, the worms will surely enjoy them.

Cheri'

Lupinelover - How can you banish spiderwort three years in a row?

Kathy,

I want that spiderwort and var. vinca! Well, and I want the ajuga and the rudbeckia AND the bishops weed. You're tossing all of the things I WANT! Ugghghh. Why can't they be growing in my yard instead of yours. Boo hoo.

Thankfully I don't have to banish goutweed any more. When we were looking to buy our house three years ago, one of the criteria was that if the house had any goutweed anywhere, it was off the list, no matter how many other criteria it met! I spent endless hours on the stuff in my old gardens, and recently stopped by there to see if I could dig up some of my old favourites to discover that the goutweed had completely choked out the old asparagus bed and most of the perennials.

I'd add comfrey to the list, too.

The vinca is growing through the plastic and decorative rocks, my husband has been fighting that...now I see it popping up in a new place & I just got some varigated vince from my DIL that I plan to plant ! Ugh, a bad idea I guess!

I'm thiiiiiiiiis close to banishing every Hybrid Tea Rose we have. Blackspot....rust....aphids....blackspot.... you get the idea!

I don't recall ever banishing anything from the borders that wasn't considered a weed, we tend to wait for it to die and simply don't replace it. Any plant that feels it can grow more than we want it to gets divided and sold.

England -- truly a gardener's paradise! No invasive plants!!!!!! No perplexing perennials or endlessly re-seeding annuals. Drooling with envy :D

How can I banish spiderwort 3 years in a row? Alas, I think that banishing it for 20 years in a row and I would still fill a bucket with the things every week! Ditto gooseneck loosestrife, goutweed (aaaarrrrggghhhh -- good move, Leisurelee!), echinicea, rudbeckia, the list is endless as the catalogues continue to mislead us.

I had forgotten about comfrey! Yep, definitely banish once a week. Not that it does any good!

"Easy to grow"
"Carefree"
"Suitable for any garden"

Sue, another DG member did banish her roses this summer. Can't recall who, but I think someone in AL.

I have a climbing rose that I say is going every year and never quite get around to it. But this year it is going for sure. The thing seems to be covered in rust all the time and it is right next to another climbing rose that always looks wonderful. It's gone.

Is goutweed the same as bindweed? The stuff is impossible to get rid of, but I had an idea of getting small sheets of plastic and putting it over the top and seeing if the sun will burn the plant to death. What do you think? I know when we built our awning we had laid a couple of sheets on the lawn for 10 min to wash them off and it started to burn the lawn.

"No invasive plants!!!!!! No perplexing perennials or endlessly re-seeding annuals"

More in the way of seriously lazy gardener and a soil that is intentionally unimproved here Lupine *G*

Kathy

Goutweed sounds like what I'd call Ground Elder http://plantsdatabase.com/go/55676/ Incredibly difficult to erradicate. Using sheeting can help but it will take several years to make a significant dent in the Ground Elder population. Black or dark is best, the top of the plant will burn in sun under plastic but it won't kill the roots and the new shoots respond to sunlight, they will simply grow again.

I was afraid it might just act like a greenhouse and spread under the ground :( . Thanks

I cut down & tried to "banish" a climbing rose that looks great in the spring but is bare of leaves by mid summer. It got too hot to dig it all out. I got distracted elsewhere. Cooled off this weekend & I went to dig it out--Darn thing is blooming Again! Guess it just needed a good threat to pull it back into line....

Oh, and I spent 2 hours fighting a 20 foot by 12 foot Moonflower that was trying to eat a school!!! I planted it as a backdrop in the dry overhang area in front of the school 3 years ago. A bulldozer ripped the bed up last summer seeking leaking pipes. I couldn't bear to go back & look at the damage. I was hoping someone else with a tougher skin would take over my 5 year landscaping project. After watching the weeds grow & grow & grow this Spring & summer, I went back Sunday to see the Moonflower devouring what was left of the bed and trying to snag passing school kids for lunch....

I went back to haul out 5 trunk loads of weeds& decimated Moonflower vines. I dug and chopped & transplanted to recover 2 of the overgrown beds. I'm not going to look at the 60 x 12 foot Butterfly garden until Spring. I don't have the energy & frost is a few weeks away.

To banish (every year):

English Ivy
Vinca - dk green and variegated
Eleagnus Bushes (Ugly Agnes), we dug up 7 huge ones 6 yrs ago, they still keep popping up from the roots!
Prickly Pear Cactus
Privit bushes
Sweet Autumn Clematis
More I can't think of right now!

Have been succesful to banish Obedient plant, it's not obedient!! Round-up works fairly well if it is applied full strength.

Kathy_T, I think the intensity of the sun in California was not taken into account when Baa said plastic wouldn't kill it. I would give it a try and leave it all summer. In a hot dry climate things might work that don't work in wetter, cloudier, milder places on the planet.

Well, mine for sure has been the ordinary garden fennel...this herb moves around in a big hurry! The root network is so strong. So in a container he goes! The fine lacy foliage is great in a flower arrangement..Elaine

I'll take anyone's Obedient plants and blackberry/cany lilies if they want to trade for daylilies, iris, black spearmint(LOL), or seeds of Zebrina Althea or some true perennial hollyhocks. I know I have other things to trade but can't think of them right now.

Where do I start?? Bishop's Weed, Jupiter's beard, vinca - both varigated and green, plumbago, varigated ribbon grass, gooseneck loosestrife, and northern sea oats (chasmanthium latifolium). The sea oats was never a problem until this year and now they are EVERYWHERE.

A couple of you have mentioned the sweet autumn clematis being a problem. Does it spread or does it just get too big? I was thinking about planting it.

Sweet autumn clematis re-seeds a LOT. It is being mentioned more and more often as an invasive plant that should be avoided in some states -- especially in the mid-Atlantic region.

It can get very large -- more than 100 feet tall, but can be cut to the ground every year to keep it under 20'. Yep, it usually grows to 20' in a year. If you cut it to the ground in the fall, after blooming, re-seeding troubles are eliminated. And the smell! Wow!

Thanks lupinelover. You have just saved me a truck-load of trouble. I need a vine to grow on a trellace over our koi pond. Preferably one that is not too messy. Any suggestions.

How about Gloriousa Lily? Mine are absolutely non-messy. Non-hardy, too, but are easy to store until spring.

Or perhaps a mandevilla? Cat's claw? Many of the tropical vines are not messy, and don't have enough time to ripen their seeds to be seriously invasive in colder areas. They are also easy to over-winter indoors, and so they would cover a lot of trellis space during the summer.

Or how about jasmine? Some of the species may be hardy enough to survive your winters -- not sure how they would do in the desert climate, tho.