Is there anything in your garden that you really wished you hadn't planted? With me - it's that great lump of red crocosmia - it's spreading faster than I can pull it up. It looked lovely at first - a bright cheery area in a shady spot - now it's just a damned nuisance.
For the last two years I sowed and planted dill and fennel, I enjoy a bit of fennel and dill but only one plant of each would be far too much. They are large plants and deep rooted, first year I sowed them then planted out and the following months I was pulling them out weekly. In the case of fennel I needed crow bar to get each root out.
What made things worse is I couldn't give them away nor would anyone harvest the greens.
I have sown a couple of seeds of both again this year, on the basis I might find a place for them to live, maybe at the top of the paddock. Certainly not in my prized raised bed growing areas.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live? Richard.
...mistaken young Alkanet (blue flowered weed) seedlings some years ago for foxglove seedlings and transplanted planted them around the garden . The darned things have taken hold everywhere, and with their long roots are almost impossible to eradicate.
I also wish I had better trained my husband never to put oxalis and cuckoo pint weed bulbs onto the compost heap. They have now been progressively spread all over the garden and are driving me crazy trying to eradicate them.
Oh dear Richard. I have just sown half a packet of dill seeds in a corner of my vegetable patch in preparation for hopefully preserving the gherkins I'm going to grow this summer, Are you suggesting I may have made a made a mistake?
Bronze Fennel marching over plot! Chives a bit naughty but bees love it, same as poppies, both of these can pop up where they want as serve a purpose - war on fennel continues!
Jerusalem artichokes are the things I can't get rid of i have a big patch about two foot square ,and four inches high. I will have to dig them all up and reset a few in there place.
Primrose wrote:Oh dear Richard. I have just sown half a packet of dill seeds Are you suggesting I may have made a made a mistake?
Hopefully you'll be able to use all that dill, if you plenty of space it won't be a problem.its a large plant and did you know it makes love to fennel so you get fen dill.
Also, in my case it was an ungainly plant because of our windy weather. Both dill and fennel have one of those silly little trunks above the root that doesn't support the foliage and the whole plant falls over. Like cabbage.
I have never seen dill or fennel leaf for sale, not this far west anyway so it was and will be nice to have some though certainly in my novice years I've been sowing far to many seeds though I have managed to control the urge and am actually managing successional showings.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live? Richard.
Montbretia in the border - big mistake, and Fox and cubs in the rockery. The Fox and cubs is now spreading near the pond and through the rose bed, nowhere near their original spot. Also someone gave me a small Kerria bush and that has sent shoots up all through the shrubbery and is a devil to dig out.
Woodruff, although looking and smelling lovely when in flower, is a real thug when let loose! We 'imported' some to plant in a dim and dark corner where nothing else would grow and it has spread out from there.
We also have lots of red campion, honesty and aquilegia spread all over the wild part of the garden, but I couldn't bear to get rid of these.
I have struggled to get aquilegia going though I do have one single plant making an attempt. My neighbour has it growing everywhere on paths so I assumed that is where it will be happy.
Clearly, some plants love to grow where there appears to be zero nutrition. Our drive areas are compacted sand/stone and local stone chipping's on top, these drive areas support all sorts of stuff that seems to survive on whatever is in the sand underneath that binds it all together. I have a ground-coverer daisy-type that I just cannot find a name for, it's taking over but it looks lovely and flowers from spring through most of summer.
So this thread is now migrating to, "I'm glad I did". Sorry.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live? Richard.
I'm glad I did plant...... cerinthe...many years ago. A few seeds in a hot dry part of the garden.....this has also taken over...but it's welcome. Don't know why the seeds are so expensive still....I give them away.
This is the "daisy-type" I refer to, it grows wild in the banks around here though was probably planted in the same way we have lot's of daffodil in the banks. I wonder if you can see enough of the foliage to identify it for me.
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How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live? Richard.
That photo was taken two years ago, I learnt how to prune it correctly and now I have ten times the amount spilling over the lawns and all the way down the drive. it's plonked itself in very odd places like the middle of the drive, wherever that happened I just pulled it out and put it somewhere convenient and it thrives. When I tried to instate it amongst the campion in the banks it didn't like it, sulked and died-off. In fact it doesn't seem to like soil.
The flowers grow on the previous years growth so trimming it back as soon as it's flowered is the way. A lot like lavender, if you cut too deep then you loose the plant. Eventually it gets a mass of black-woody old wood but it seeds so happily I always have new plants appearing even without sowing.
Don't forget I'm a learner so these are Eureka moments for me, I used to destroy lavender every year. Either wet-rot or over-zealous pruning.
I have a plant that now grows naturally amongst my wild flower, it's common name is ladies bedstraw but I don't know it's horticultural title. Lovely fragrant bursts of tiny yellow flowers that ladies used to put into their straw beds to keep the beetles away and entice the local healthy looking boys. Bees and butterflies love it, it is perennial.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live? Richard.
