I'm very close to falling out of love with mahonia japonica. It's great for the bees but it's just too spiky. I get stabbed and scratched (sometimes in very intimate areas) every time I walk past it. It's one of those plants that you swear is sentient and moves it's branches when you're not looking just to stab you in the goolies. It drops leaves all the time that sit in the soil like caltrops and usually stab me right up under the finger nail whenever I go weeding. It hums with bees on a warm winter's day though and that's the only thing saving their spiky skins for now. I thought the Beast from the East had solved my problem this winter but they've bounced back from their freezing twice as strong as before, and with twice as many leaves dropped into the soil this year
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
Lupins. They seem to attract every Greenfly within a 10 mile radius, plus slugs and snails seem to enjoy destroying the foliage too. I only have one in the garden this year after removing the others. Thats only there because it popped up behind the Deutzia and the wildflowers and i can't get to it to dig it up. Still, it seenms to be coming in useful as a sacrificial plant. I don't use garlic spray on it so the molluscs gather there, ripe for picking off and being sent to the great Hosta in the sky.
Gardening. The cause of, and solution to, all of my problems.
Lupins... I can't be faffed with all the greenfly! I love Delphiniums but hate having to put in supports which don't work if the wind is strong. And I wish I hadn't got Daniel Deronda clematis,his flowers are too big!
The whole truth is an instrument that can only be played by an expert.
The Daniel Deronda from this garden has been given his marching orders ... after 3 years of all a clematis could wish for , living in an ideal spot , all he could do was put out two flowers and then the whole plant turns brown and crispy overnight ... again. He is being replaced by Betty Corning of whom I expect great things.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Plants which are supposed to be good for bees...nothing ever goes on them! Euphorbia, geum, some geraniums and there are probably others but can't think of them just now.
Johnson’s Blue geranium. It’s very leggy, untidy and sprawling through everything. Guess I need to give it a chop but the bees are loving it! That in itself is good enough reason to persevere!
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I love Delphiniums but hate having to put in supports which don't work if the wind is strong.
And I wish I hadn't got Daniel Deronda clematis,his flowers are too big!
He is being replaced by Betty Corning of whom I expect great things.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Plants which are supposed to be good for bees...nothing ever goes on them! Euphorbia, geum, some geraniums and there are probably others but can't think of them just now.
Yuccas. I bought a large variegated one thinking it would be architectural, but every winter it gets more ugly brown patches on its leaves.
Also Cannas, they never survive the winter even when dug up.