Based only on what YOU'VE put in your yard (not the nightmares previous owners have left you) since you've wisened up now...what is the one plant you've most regretted now? Why? Did you take it out yet?
And what has been the one plant to earn the title "delight of the garden"?
I know you'll have many that fall into each category but I'm sure with all of us we'll cover the gamet (spelling?)....
Can you help save me from mistakes is what I'm getting at, LOL.
Worst Nightmare Plant....or Sweet Dreams?
Well....I've only had my beds here for two years, but the worst so far has been putting two hibicus 'October Rose' along my fence. I had no idea they would get as large as they did from seed this spring. I had plants they had taken over that I had actually forgotten I had planted. I finally ripped them out a couple weeks ago, and had scratches all over me from the stems which are prickly, not to mention a yardful of branches and two trunks I literally had to break the roots with a shovel before digging out. They were a nightmare. Word of caution to anyone else: put them somewhere by themselves.
The delight of my garden so far has been my rosebush, Madame Antoine Marie. I got it my first spring here and planted it as a 1 gallon pot. No special care and this thing is huge! Stayed green all winter despite the frosts and freezes we had and bloomed. I actually need to try moving it back against the house more because of how much it has grown. If you want a carefree rose, this is it.
:) Kim
Thank-you, you've answered just as I'd hoped! Did you get the rose at ARE or where?
I got the rosebush at the TAMU annual spring plant sale, but they got it from ARE as it still had the tag on it. I need to learn how to root cuttings from it, tried a couple times but no luck so far.
My worst planting choice was showy evening primrose. Pretty groundcover, I thought. It covers ground, other plants, shrubs, the yard. I am fighting to exterminate it.
My favorite is a found rose 'Georgetown Tea.' It came from the ARE five years ago. http://www.antiqueroseemporium.com/rose-2221.html Mine grows over six feet tall and wide. It never seems to stop blooming for long and has no problems with disease. The fragrant blooms can be cut as singles or in clumps and last well in a vase.
My thug has been bamboo I fought to get over here and now try to get rid of..
My dream boat plants have been the Swamp Rose, Vitex, Wormwood, Lilies, and most of the naitves.
I have tried to many times to grow October Rose.. they get an inch tall or so and stop for me - I would have loved a plant like that in the yard.
Mitch....I've still got seeds if you ever want to try again. I suppose it would've been ok if they had their own space.
Kim
Are we talking about October Rose, Hibiscus cannabinus? If so I have seeds too, it is very spiny and as the name says it doesn't bloom till October, and it is an annual, so I didn't bother replanting it.
The flowers are very pretty though. Here is a picture of mine from last year.
Josephine.
Yep, that's it. The flowers are pretty but I just couldn't deal with all the other plants it was strangling. I underestimated the space it needed by a mile.
Thank-you all for listing worst/best...it's so helpful!
Patrob---the link made it even better, thanks!
Ohhhh spines huh? That October Rose sounds to dangerous for me!
Yes I would love the seeds! I mess with a few annuals that I just love. I have heard that once it seeds in your yard it is there forever. This and confedrate rose I have both tried so many times I cannot count. I can get them so tall and then nada...
O.K. I will bring some, but you will have to husk them, the spines tick to your fingers, I will just give you the whole pod.
By the way, I said the plant is an annual, but actually it is frost tender including the roots, so for us it is the same thing.
Right - thank you!
There are a few that I occasionally regret, but then, at times they are the most beautiful plants in the garden, so haven't ripped any out.
Dwarf Mexican Petunia (white flowering)---I was at a well respected gardening store and let the most experienced employee know that I was looking for a long blooming perennial. He showed me the dwarf mexican petunia and I bought four. I planted them at the back of a narrow bed between the semicircular drive and sidewalk. It's VERY invasive and isn't perennial in Dallas (looks bad from first freeze to March). However, we had all that rain followed by muggy heat this year....the dwarf mexican petunia looked really nice and bloomed like crazy this year---it was the only plant that looked great under these conditions---everything else looked poached. It is also functional, in that it grows into a dead space between the semicircular drive and the front bed--covers imperfections in the concrete. It has spread, not only all over the original planting bed, but also into another bed all the way across the concrete semicircular drive.
Four o'clocks--looks very "weedy" until July, but then becomes a blooming machine until October. It also has a nice fragrance. Out of all the plants, I think about ripping this one out the most. Can't exactly rip this one out due to deep tuber-like roots.
Morning glory 'milky way'--looks great from May to October, but the wind, rain, and animals carry the seeds everywhere.
Delight of the garden
Camellia sasquana-it's in a 70% shade spot and looks so green all the time. It then forms buds late July, and then I anxiously wait, and wait. Then when almost everything else stops blooming mid October, it puts on a fabulous show of white flowers until December. I enjoy the anticipation of waiting for the blooms, and the firework display of blooms pays off.
There are so many other plants that I love, so I must give honorable mentions.
Knockout roses--dependable, hardy, evergreen, blooming machines from April to November.
Salvia greggi, mystic spires, marcus, and victoria blue---dependable blooming machines that attract butterflies and the occasional hummingbird.
All the other roses--fragrance, blooms
Must be an odd duck because I don't regret any thing although some are considered to be invasive such as the Mexican Petunia and Four O'Clock. Really, really love the blue ballon flowers (never know the latin)....also liatris....and ginger.....and passion vine white and purple....EE....banana tree.....ferns....man in a boat....variegated wandering jew....datura...on and on. If it lives....hooray.....if it blooms hallelujah.
Actually I KNOW I am the "odd duck". Never seem to make the swan stage. hahahaha
lol lou---to funny!
Red tips ~ no real regrets other than they are dying and I have to remove them. Will then have to find a replacement border.
Another disappointment is Dietes ~ African iris. It has refused to bloom. This year I dug it up and potted it and still no blooms.
Passions ~ anything that survives. I work toward xeriscaping in a way... I water only the first year to get it established. Then the plants sink or swim.
Plants I have regretted:
Cannas-so pretty but my goodness they multiplied too quickly and took over the whole bed the first year. Then leafrollers moved in and turned them to yuk. Dug them all up and good bye cannas.
Purslane-gosh what a pretty plant, spreads nicely and what a show when it is open. Mine is all yellow. Problem: each time it is touched, it pouts for days or weeks after. The cat cannot step into it, or it just lays down and sulks. If I pull a weed in that bed, the purslane gets offended and wilts.
Callas-just did not have success in blooms. Planted about 2 dozen, but only got 2 blooms.
Nasturtium-rreeaallly easy to plant and grow. I just did not like the way the plant is shaped with the leaves hiding the flowers (beneath). It looked like it belonged in a vegetable garden....and I hear that it does go there, for many gardeners! Also when the wind blows, it shows its ugly legs due to shallow roots not holding the plant well.
Favorites-
Vitex! What lush growth and its blooming....AGAIN!
Live Oaks-survived the last 3 years drought. That's enough said.
Crape Myrtles-can't kill em; I NEVER get tired of looking at crapes.
Clematis vine-lovely, and rebounded double time after an inadvertent spray of roundup which had appeared to have killed it. Fabulous, nonagressive dainty vine with the most intense purple blooms I've ever witnessed.
Tuberose-bugs leave it alone, seems to have no disease tendencies, and the fragrance of the flowers is purely intoxicating.
Mexican Heather- WOW I just love this little ferny lookin plant with tiny purple blooms. I'm hopin and wishin it will survive the winter for a return next year. Since I have only full sun, this is a way for me to have "ferns" without shade.
Lantana- super easy to propagate even for a beginner. LOVE the flowers and the butterflies attack it!
Dawn Redwood-light green soft feathery foliage, gorgeous peeling red bark, a tough tree with such aesthetic appeal. I can't wait to see this little tree get big and spread.
Zinnias-never say die. Pretty blooms, little attention, long lasting color.
Mimosa-say what you will, I think they're fabulous when in bloom. Perfect arching out canopy top shape with just the right amount of light coming through.
Elaeagnus-fascinating shrub with gorgeous foliage, just my cup of tea.
Loropetalum-another gorgeous shrub with great foliage and likes to LIVE.
Moss Rose-reseeds itself for a return show the next year. Asks for nothing and gives nonstop jewel tone blooms all summer long. So simple a 3rd grader can plant, propagate, transplant, and care for it.
Laura, loved your detailed list! That helps a lot with all the descriptions. Ohhh I guess I need to take out my cannas (previous owners)!!!! I noticed leaves were eaten by something on some. Ew. Hearing a lot of good votes on the vitex! I'll have to learn more about my plants! Can't kill a crepe myrtal huh? I guess I get "worst gardener of the year" because I had on, small, in great bloom for months, then when we went to go look at it again end of summer covered in black powder? And it was black all over the ground. Ripped it out so as not to infect the whole yard. I wasn't attached to it's location anyhow. Thank you all so much so far!
lol, I'm with LouC....I haven't planted anything that I truly regret ever planting. Everything seems to be blending together quite nicely...and everyone is getting along, lol. Don't get me started on dollar weed and nut grass! Gawd....who, or what got these started in my yard!? :p
My true queens of my beds have definitely been my Vitexes, Red Ruellias, Texas Birds of Paradise, Hummingbird Bushes, ALL of my Salvias and Sages and my fragrant Mimosa (Tx). All of the rain has been such a blessing, at least in the garden here...but alas, I lost a few favorite native varieties who loved desert conditions only.
Melanie :)
Sage...glad you bring this up----I'm leaning towards nightmare category on this only because every time one gets large and leggy I trim it back and you know it comes back but it splits it's stems so that you see the woody thick base of it and it just looks---flat? I have no idea where I am going wrong in this but I can never get them to regrow as a nice bush.
My worst nightmare was asian jasmine - mostly because the previous owner had let it take over most of the beds and a good chunk of the yarrd. My driveway is literally two feet wider since I cleared it out.
My favorite so far is plain oldlantana, due to the large number of butterflies it attracts. I also think that my chile.tepins look really cool - more like berries than veggies, plus a funky zigzag branching structure.
Dennis
Glad to see you, Dennis. Thank you for joining in.
Do you have picture of the chili.tenpins? I am not familiar with them. Could be but don't know the name. My biggest falicy.
Here is a link:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/31752/
It is a native plant I transplanted it from south texas, where they call it chile petin or bird pepper. It dies to the ground, but comes back bigger in the spring. Mine really started reseeding this year, so I'll be bringing seedlings to the October swap. The chiles look similar to chile pequins, but are round instead of oblong. An added bonus is that it is shade tolerant.
I think my biggest nightmare is the morning glories that I naively planted about 15 years ago. I don't remember that they bloomed all that much that year, but they sure did invade my yard. They would climb everything in sight now - even my huge climbing roses like Cecile Brunner. Or atleast they would if I didn't pull them up. I think I'm going to have to resort to RoundUp.
One of my favorites is datura that I got from Josephine. I meant to send a picture of it to you Josephine, but just haven't gotten to it. Another one is confederate jasmin. It's very healthy, requires 0 maintenance from me and blooms prolifically but hasn't invaded anywhere as far as I know. My favorite rose is climbing New Dawn - very little blackspot, very dense dark green leaves, beautiful flowers.
Mary Lee, I am glad you are enjoying the Datura, I planted one at my church and it went gigantic on me, 58 blooms one night. Check this out.
Josephine.
This message was edited Sep 11, 2007 10:32 PM
Mary Lee....I hear you about the morning glory. I have a wild one that was planted before I moved here on the back of the house. Every year I have to pull it off of everything, I hate it. I killed it this year before it bloomed and reseeded so I am hoping perhaps that will slow it down.
Frostweed, that is beautiful! Angels trumpets at church ~ how appropriate and lovely! I love to sit and watch the datura unfurl...
Ditto on Silverfluters selection of Confederate Jasmine ~ non invasive, evergreen with pretty fall colors on the leaves and a month in the springtime of the most hauntingly beautiful fragrance...
Uh oh, I have a bunch of morning glory growing on the side fence and up the telephone pole! It is really gorgeous this year...
I think this is the datura.
It looks great Mary Lee, one of my babies.
Yes, it is and I'm glad to have it in my yard.:)
I just discovered that my orchid cactus bloomed tonight. This is the one that I've had for many years and it never bloomed because I never thought to fertilize it. It had a bud on it a month ago, but we had a storm and it got knocked off. So it grew another bud that I didn't even notice. This morning I saw it and it was already huge, so I thought it might bloom tonight and it did! It smells so good! DH was already asleep, but I woke him up so he could smell it. He even stood there and held it so I could get a better picture of it. If I can figure out to get it in the computer, I'll post it tomorrow.
silver----an orchid that doesn't bloom for years? Sounds like mine! Just puts out new leaves....think DH is fertilizing it though with orchid food?
Tir, this is not an orchid though. This isan orchid cactus. Makes a really awsome flower, but it doesn't last long.
BTW if you got an orchid to live at all for years, you'rewway ahead of me.:)
this should be a picture of my orchid cactus that bloomed last year. It's a different variety. These are very easy to grow. The trick to getting them to bloom is to keep them somewhere for the winter where they can be fairly cool. And then ofcourse fertilize.
This message was edited Sep 12, 2007 9:23 AM
Worth waiting for, Silver. The picture is lovely and the bee just adds to it.
Oh my gosh that is a gorgeous flower!
Talking about orchids reminded me of my wee blooms that happily surprised me last winter. Now most of my plants are about 90% natives...but my sister gave me this plant about 2 years ago...and it really showed off for me! :) I didn't know that I had it in me, lol.. ;)
Melanie
A couple of years ago, a friend moved away and while her house was being sold she told us to come get some plants so her grandson didn't kill them all. Connie and I went over there and were like kids in a candy store, digging up all kinds of plants. Begonias that were growing out in the yard, split leaf philodendrons, gardenias, spider lilies, day lilies, and papyrus. We put back things that we had an abundance of in our own yards so we didn't leave gaping holes where the plants had been.
The only nightmare that I regret getting from there and putting in my yard was the papyrus. One 12 inch planting of it gets about 10 ft. tall and at least 10 ft. wide. It is a really cool plant but it takes over an area really quickly. Hubby has cut it back and cut it back and he always tries to "salvage" some of it in a 5 gallon bucket. Why oh why does he want MORE of it???
We bought ONE red leaf Canna about 15 years ago. Now I have quite a few nice "stands" of it that I really enjoy. The hummers and butterflies really enjoy the blooms. Yes there are leaf rollers. Yes I whack them off when I notice them. All in all though, I've really enjoyed them. The blooms on my cannas aren't as big and showy as most of the cannas I see here on Dave's.
I have too many favorites to choose any one plant. This year I've started a coleus collection that I just absolutely love. I will do everything I can to overwinter them, including taking at least one cutting of each to my sisters house to put in her greenhouse.
Mystic Spires has been one of my most favorites this year. It's been blooming since I bought it in the spring. The bumblebees just love that one.
I planted some cleome seeds that a DGer sent to me (can't remember at the moment who it was). I didn't do any research before I planted it and it's taken over my whole back fence and not given me a single bloom yet. It's got to be at least 8 ft. tall now. I also planted some October Rose Hibiscus seeds that I got from Kipper at the CS Roundup last Fall and they look VERY similar. I'm wondering if I got the labels mixed up on the seedlings when I was labeling the containers. Both plants have little thorns along the stems. Josephine's photo above is the first time I've seen what the October Rose looks like. Thank you so much for posting that photo! Considering my "cleome" hasn't bloomed yet, maybe I did plant the October Rose there, and not the cleome that I thought it was. If that's the case, and it blooms in October, I will put an eyebolt on each side of that back fence and rope it up that way. Those blooms are really pretty. It hurts like heck to mow under those things. The thorns are always catching my arms, so I whack and whack them so they aren't outside of the bed's border. A week later, they are back and even further out!
The October rose is very pretty, but with it not surviving the winter and taking so long to bloom, I decided not to plant this year, but it might survive the winter for you, since you are in a warmer zone.
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Melanie, those orchids are really beautiful, lucky you.
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Mary Lee, the orchid Cactus is gorgeous too, so many beautiful things the Lord has created for us to enjoy.
Josephine.
Mitch....I just remembered that I gave an october rose to my mom and I'm not sure she wants it since she hasn't been able to get things in yet. If she doesn't care I can put your name on it.
Kim