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

Yes, I forgot to comment on that. It was quite the laugh to read.

I enjoyed the Stepford Wives bedding plants and the mercy killing best of all.

Third that on the "Stepford wives!"

Thanks for the compliments and the advisory on Sumac. Every autumn I tell myself I've got to pull over somewhere along the highway and dig a few small starts with good color to transplant to my very own driveway. Perhaps I should rethink that. I read somewhere the berries make a lemonade-like drink if you soak them in water(?).

I did not like Oregon Grape (Mahonia) when I moved here and tore alot of it out of the places I wanted to garden. I have come to appreciate it for its soft yellow spring blossoms, lovely dusty blue berries, startling orange-mahogony leaf color (which can occur anytime) in addition to the dark green leaves. It is unappealing to grazing animals. Now I encourage it and have appologised for my ignorant Mahonia massacre.

I would have listed poison oak as my #1 nemesis but it seemed so obvious. I was surprised once by a large display of honey gathered from the blossoms of poison oak. It was supposed to relieve arthritis pain(?), but I didn't try it. Anyway, that gave me a new respect for my old enemy.

"Mahonia massacre" - just too funny!

1. Orange daylily. were in my yard when we bought the house.....every where and spread everywhere.....almost can't get rid of them......The leaves get brown and ugly at the bottom and you constantly have to tidy them up. Where they were in my yard was damp all the time and when you cleaned them up I was always getting bitten by nats or mosquito. Just hate, hate, hate orange daylily!

2. Obedient Plant. Spreads and fills an area in one season and takes over. Crowds out all the other flowers in the same flower bed. Not especially attractive foliage and when it finally blooms late in the season it really is not worth the wait.

3. Mulberry Trees. We had about 7 or 8 Mulberry Trees down one side of our yard when we first bought our house. The berries seem to fall all along the side walk way. (So many!!!! They would cover it) Constantly having to rake/sweep them up. Got the broom all stained. Everyone would walk on them and get them all over the soles of their shoes and then bring them in the house.....Ruined many a Rug!
I know the birds love them, but.........

I'm curious about the comments about sumac. 2 gardens near my home have Staghorn Sumac growing in them. In one garden it is kept pruned with the trunks bare to about 4 feet up from the ground. It's shape is very picturesque like something you would see in a Japanese garden. I've never seen any sprouts around it so I don't know how the gardener deals with them. The other one I've seen is fuller in shape but still a nice size for a garden...again, I've seen no sign of spreading. Maybe they are just incredibly diligent gardeners but I hardly ever see them working in their gardens.

I did some volunteer gardening a few years ago at a local college and there was a sumac in one of the garden areas I worked on. There were a good number of 2 to 4 feet tall offspring around it (the garden had been untended for several years) when I began working there but they were relatively easy to remove and we left the main one as an anchor plant in the large garden. It didn't present a problem but I had only worked there for three years when the school moved to a Chicago campus so I don't know what's happening there now.

Sumac does grow wild around here so I am puzzled by the apparent good behavior I see in the gardens I've seen. Maybe the conditions in the gardens here are not ideal enough to for it to go crazy.

Sumac is very invasive here. We've pulled up runners 20-30 feet away from the main sumac, and all along the runner baby sumacs were coming up. It's runners always head for the best dirt, the flower beds.

They are very pretty, and if all that's around it is lawn you could just keep mowing the shoots down, but it does spread to all the garden beds.

Polly is right. Plus, when they drop their "leaves" it's more like branches. Messy, invasive plants that stink. I can't stand the way they smell. And they not only spread by runners, they also send out gazillions of seeds that invade every free piece of land they can find. When I do cut one down, I then paint the cut area with Brush Be Gone, and that seems to help control the suckers. Painting instead of spraying was a recommendation from a DEC friend.

Some of your descriptions sound exactly like Ailanthus altissima otherwise known as Stinkweed. It looks very much like sumac but grows to be a large tree. The clues I see mentioned that say Ailanthus to me are: 20 foot runners with babies sprouting all along the way....the smell, when it blooms, is an unpleasant musky smell but the smell when you crush a twig or leaf is nauseating.... the compound leaves are long, twiggy and hard to rake up....and it spreads visciously by runners and seeds. There was an Ailanthus in our next door neighbors yard just outside of our bedroom window. I spent hours every summer pulling the invaders from all over my yard.

This next door house was neglected rental property for many years and Ailanthus saplings were growing all along the foundation of the house. Then it became vacant and after about 6 weeks of no one mowing the lawn the back yard was a miniature forest of trees. Fortunately someone was eventually hired to keep the lawn mowed.

New homeowners moved in. After about a year we finally decided to ask them if we could have the tree removed. I told them all about Ailanthus (which is considered a noxious weed) and they gave us permission to have it cut down. Of course they were not interested in helping to pay for it.

We paid $1000 to have the tree removed and it was the best money we ever spent. They moved out shortly after that and then my husband cut down all the saplings along the foundation of the house and sprayed the stumps with round up. That really helped but there are still some coming back. Somehow we have to make sure a tree is not allowed to mature over there again.

Could some of you be mistaking Ailanthus for Sumac? When young they really do look alike but you can tell them apart for sure by the smell of crushed leaves and twigs.

Oh, I meant to apologize for diverting from the topic. Sorry.

I am 99.99% sure what I have is the staghorn sumac, since they are quite prevalent here. It is more shrub-like and not as full as the picture I saw of the Ailanthus altissima. I will examine them more closely, but with those red clusters forming in the summer and fall, I'm thinking this is what we have.

Oh, for sure, if they have the red velvety "flowers" and seeds you've got Staghorn Sumac. I should have thought of that. It's so obvious.

I was thinking about that garden I volunteered at the college. In the large central garden we always had babies from the nearby walnut trees, Ailanthus, and Sumac. When I was weeding the only way I could tell them apart for sure was by the smell of the crushed leaves when I pulled them out.

So I'm still fascinated that the Sumac I see in gardens around me doesn't seem to be that aggressive. But after the warnings I've seen here, I am not tempted to try one in my garden. I'll just admire the neighbor's.

Mine are definitely sumac. I own a nursery, and am pretty much up on my plants, LOL. Red velvety flowers and seeds here too.

Maybe there are different strains of sumac around the country, and I must have the most polite, mild mannered ones. I have four slender trunks that have been on my property forever, and they have NEVER spread, never overstepping their bounds, which is at the edge of a wooded area. The birds love the deep burgundy fruits. My only complaint is that the branches are bare and homely until mid-May. It's very late to leaf out. I'm thinking of sending a rambling rose up the trunks.