Name 3 plants you don't like and why...

Junipers, just a nest for cobwebs
Marigolds, stink plus folks are guilty of doing the 'soldiers in a row' look with them, I actually cringe when I see people load up their carts with marigolds, ugh!
Wax leaf begonias, ugly!

Edited to fix spelling, sheesh.



This message was edited May 20, 2009 10:25 AM

Ahhh mEN

And to think I used to envy people with forsythia and maple trees! LOL
We have a lot of Artemisia native to California, aka sagebrush, mugwort, etc. Not only does it stink, it's very bad for people with allergies.
Oh, Sue, do I agree about Juniper! Hate those rocket plants!

OK..I'm going to jump in ...Shirley poppies - they look weedy, spindly and they have never ever bloomed for me, here on the prairie!! Sweet Autumn Clematis- I as a clematis newbie, planted them by seed and they grew so fast that one caught a girly pumpkin and threw her to the other side of the yard....then of course I had to read about their invasiveness... so they are no longer...but now I'm on the lookout for the seedlings. Eupatorium rugosum 'Chocolate'- I planted it 3 years ago and it is the worst raggedly thug gift giver ever! My 'Chocolate' disappeared after the first year, but its unsightly, rangly seedlings have been sprouting all over the yard ever since! The seedlings seem to shoot up overnight with large gangly weedy looking leaves...and I hate that I ever planted that 'Chocolate' all over again!

Love your post!

LOL

;0)...and I'm still hating that 'Chocolate'!!!

artemiss
I have to agree with that ugly salvia. i hate that are that horrible orange red.
there are so many beautiful salvia , why do they even sell those ones.

Junipers were everywhere in new mexico. my brother and I called the spider bushes.

There are some artemisias that i really love. I have never had a spreading varity. i also have found that planting them around roses, keeps the aphids away from the roses, but they cover the artemisia. i love the lacy silver one and the varigated one.

It's so interesting how plants can behave differently in different gardens. I have had the "Chocolate" eupatorium in my garden for several years and it has been a very attractive plant for me. I have moved it once because it got too big for the spot where I had it and I gave a division of it to my son. I don't think he's had any trouble with it. I have never had any seedlings show up. I had it in the sun where did very well and I now have it in medium shade where it's doing just fine although it doesn't bloom quite as heavily. The only drawback I have experienced is that when it was in the sun it attracted hordes of tiny little flies (at least they looked like flies) when in bloom. I haven't seen that since I moved it to the shadier site.

I don't like:

Ladybells - very, very invasive - spreads by runners and seed, impossible to eradicate and within a few years will be infesting every border in your yard and probably your neighbors' too.

Houttuynia - it spread in a scattered way for me - not useful as a groundcover and the smell of it makes me feel sick.

Tall asters - although I still have them I have relegated them to obscure areas where I can neglect them because 1- they require so much staking, 2- the lower stems get all brown and ratty looking so you have to carefully plant something else to hide those stems if you want to keep your garden looking healthy, 3-The branches are so woody and tough that cutting them down in the fall or spring is quite arduous and 4 - in my opinion they don't bloom long enough to justify all that work. But I guess I must disagree with myself because I still haven't completely gotten rid of them.

Chris~ agree 'Chocolate' is an attractive plant....it is the gift of it's thug offsprings that causes the trouble as 'Chocolate' does not come true from seed. Glad it's behaving itself in your gardens and hope it continues to so.....

Another plant I dont like is Ajuga,talk about running - a -amuck!!!

The plants I don't like are the ones my neighbors allow to go wild: St. John's Wort, blackberry vines, and ivy. They keep creeping over and under my fences and I sometimes feel that half of my gardening time is taken up by trying to keep those out of my garden.

I have ajuga and it does need constant control. For a border it works fine but once it gets within a garden it's a pest. Burgundy Glow ajuga never has gone wild but Silver Brocade borders on invasive.

Wave Petunias
Wax Begonias
those middle of the pot/planter things they call spikes.

I'm not a fan of those spiky things either. I think they are dracena but they are not beautiful and have been so overused with zonal geraniums, for years, that it's boring - not "classic" to me.

Yes, Dracena. That's the plant.

My turn.
1-Canna. I'm probably angering lots of people here. This plant has its own forum no less!
The foliage is interesting, but the flower heads are a muddled mess.
2-Those weak spindly looking dwarf iris.
3-Celosia. Any variety, any loud color, but especially the convoluted ones that look like brains. Yeesh.

Regarding dracena..my girly pumpkin calls them dracula...pointed like his cape or teeth, but more likely when she was younger dracula was easier to say than dracena.

Winterrobin~ I have to agree with the dwarf iris..detest them,,,but then again, I detest the standard iris that my friends try to unload on me every year.... Perhaps you have tried celosia ' pink candles' ...Critter introduced them to me several swaps back...they are quite stunning in the gardens with their magenta to burgundy leaves and they'' call every flying pollinator in your neighborhood to your yard, if you're scarce of pollinators. There is one drawback..you have to deadhead regularly when the blooms decline or they'll eagerly reseed for you. Fortunately, the seedlings are very easy to pull up.

garden6 I actually planted Pink Flamingo celosia once. It sounds very similar to your Pink Candles. It's pretty in a way, and NOTHING like those revolting brains and other
too-bright celosias you see at garden centers all the time. But for more lasting results, I planted penisetum (sp?) "Moudry" for deep burgundy leaves. It's very graceful.

LOL at "Celosia's that look like brains". !!! They really do, don't they !

If I have to dig up another palm tree seedling I'm going to pull my hair out by the root.

Someone gave me six of these celosia one summer, that he had lovingly raised from seed. What a ghastly waste of time. They were bright red. I was horrified.

JD, you should see our slope! Those little palms are popping up all over. At least they are growing in the mulch and are easily pulled up.

I hate palm seedlings too. Every month or so I have to spend an entire Saturday morning plucking the little buggers from my lawn, the walkways, cracks in the concrete slab around my house, the gutters . . . they're everywhere!!!!!

Sounds like the same problem we have, but with maple or elm seedlings. We just mow over them. If they are in the garden area, they are pulled. The absolute worst are the sumac seedlings. If you don't catch them early, they are a pain to eradicate. Plus, they stink.

Oh my gosh, sumac seedlings. The bane of my husbands existance. Those things can travel for miles underground if not pulled right away.

They are truly awful! I've had some right up next to the foundation that were nearly impossible to eliminate. I just hate them.

Luckily we've never had them near the foundation.

I've had some in my flower bed in the wooded area, and took a strip out of the bed when they were pulled out. My hisband can spot them a mile away.

And I used to love the looks of the mature tree/ shrub, whatever it is, beatiful fall color. Not anymore.

It's always nice to see a mistake I haven't made!

My friend planted one and within two years had to dig up a huge area, I'd guess it was about 20' x 20', just to get rid of the entire sumac and all the runners and seedlings.

Sumac! DS dug some up one year (it grows wild) and took it to her home in the suburbs. DB and I thought she should know better. Haven't heard her mention it but I would suspect she has regretted taking it. The maple seedlings are a pain too, altho we also mow over them. BTW, my BIL ask why maples only seed every 2 years. Anyone know if that is true? The two I had in my yard made a mess every year!!!
I have a hummingbird vine that puts up shoots all over but they are mowed off. In the flowerbeds I pull them out.

I've dug very deep and still can't seem to ever get out all of the hummingbird vine roots - they're another wanderer.

Our maples throw off seedlings every year.

I think maples seed every year. If they flower, then there is a good chance there will be seeds, unless maybe there was a late frost or some other event which affected the flowers.

I don't know anyone up here who would deliberately plant sumac. It grows wild here, and is a pain to eliminate. The seedlings appear just about everywhere - I suppose much like the palm seedlings.

Skunk cabbage is another plant I could really live without. It's fine growing back in the woods, but then it pops up in the yard, too. Even the deer won't touch it!

Sumac's fall colors are boasted about in several gardening magazines, but they neglect to tell you what an ugly, rangly shrub it is the other 11 months of the year.

another thing I hate. liqued amber trees. I have had five choped down already. there roots are horrible and those pokey balls. I also have thousands of seedlings to pull.

i now hate wild strawberries

You can't beat Liquidambers for their fall color in So. Calif., though...
You're right Steph...those seed pods are like midieval torture devices.

English Ivy when it goes female and blooms. It happens in Sept. here when the weather is hot and the scent is nauseating to me. The yellowjackets love it. I try to trim off the branches now before it blooms...nipping it in the bud.

Goathead puncture vine. A nice-looking little green mat with pretty yellow flowers. The seeds have horns that will punture bicycle tires, cripple dogs, and have to be removed from the soles of shoes with pliers. I ask permission to remove them from other's places too. No one realises the horrible stickers come from such a harmless- looking groundcover volunteer.

Stepford Wives color spot bloomin' bedding plants. I love surprise in a garden, not conformity. I feel sorry for the poor pansies, petunias, marigolds and their well-behaved siblings. When the Stepford Husbands "accidentally" spray them with Round-Up it is a mercy-killing.

I've already listed my three, but this year we have tons and tons of oak tree babies popping up all over (where the squirrels buried the acorns, I guess). They still have the acorns attached when we pull them up. Kind of neat, but they seem to be in the nice soft dirt in the garden beds mainly.

Hi Polly,squirrls are lazy,thay like nice soft beds and planters and newly planted anything where the soil is loose.
I detest sumak in the garden but in the fall , along the hiways ,its beautiful color.

huckleberry6 - great posts. It's grand to start the day with a few laughs.