Forum home Plants
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Which plants are you still digging out of your borders 10 years later?

2

Posts

  • Lizzie27Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494
    Hardy geraniums, most of them don't know where to stop. Likewise Jap.Anemones and crocosmia. I hate perennials with underground runners - the descriptions and books hardly ever warn you about them.
    North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone
  • TopbirdTopbird Posts: 8,355
    I wouldn’t be without mine but I do think raspberries should come with a health warning. Every year I have several sessions digging out the runners which spread way beyond their allotted space.
    Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
  • WilderbeastWilderbeast Posts: 1,415
    We've suddenly gained 3 geum urbarnum no idea where they've come from. I take it there a bit of a thug, their coming out in the morning
  • AlchemistAlchemist Posts: 273
    +1 to pink generic geranium 😡. It has a tendency to seed amongst other plants making them a real pain and getting rid of them is a relentless task. Rudbeckia could be a pain. However I find it’s runners to be fairly shallow and easy to hoick. Aquilegia is another prolific seeder in our garden but is fairly easy to pull them out even when mature.
  • PurpleRosePurpleRose Posts: 538
    It wasnt me who planted Campanula. It was the people who owned the house before us. It was everywhere. It is constant battle trying to keep it at bay. I turn my back and it has returned.

    I dont like using weed killer. I have tried it on one section that seems indestructible. I got a false sense of security. It looked like it was going to die and then bounced back.

    I know why they planted it. Ground cover and they literally covered all available ground with either pebbles or Campanula.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    I like most of the things mentioned so far and have paid to put in most myself. My nemisis is inherited vinca - like B3. Who on earth thought that was a good idea needs a talking to. Almost impossible to get rid of. I nearly made the mistake of "mind your own business" too and next door have it.  Jap anemonies hate me and I have been trying to rear tham for years. I would take care to avoid actively putting in celedine (as friends of mine) have because that really is a "valve decision". Once it's in there is no going back. It's can't dig out all the bulblets and pretty much have to grow to like it. I do like it enough. Ox eye daisies are tenacious. I put some in my front garden, once, years ago, and now they are springing up all along the street. :# They come up in all the cracks in my paving. I quite like the flowers but will rip out all the plants when they have done flowering (which is quite easy). They are not really something to put in lightly. The greenery is quite ugly and subject to wilt, dehydration and terrible black fly. Why a field plant should want to grow in paving is beyond me. I guess it hasn't read the books.

    The last one is Astro Turfii. I've not personally put it in, but a few neighbours have tried it, and now it is spreading like wildfire in our area and there's not much we can do it. Take it out and five more appear. Worse than Japanese knotweed, for sure.

  • AmphibiosAmphibios Posts: 158
    edited May 2020
    @Fire ! :D
    I image searched Astro Turfii with trepidation wondering if I’d be able to resist the siren call as I hadn’t heard of it before. 
    I’ve finally thought myself out of planting a ‘small’ eucalyptus and I still try to think up ways I could plant a rhus typhina tiger eyes (concrete bunker?). 
    The image results made me laugh. 
  • Butterfly66Butterfly66 Posts: 970
    I could (almost) wish I had a problem here with Japanese Anemones, love them but they don’t seem to love this garden at all...sigh...
    Going off our four years here so far we will still be managing our resident thugs of ox-eye daisies, buttercups and Alkanet. But I love the daisies, we get two flushes of flowers from ours and no problems with the foliage as our soil is reasonably moist. 
    I suspect we could conquer the other two as we have far less but we just try and keep them to specific areas because of the wildlife benefits but they regularly try and escape. I must admit I love the flowers if these two as well.

    Oh I forgot my really frustrating one - bluebells. We have one huge bed full of them and there never seems to be less (foliage that is, trying to eradicate them just means lots of foliage and fewer flowers from my experience).
     If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
    East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
  • AmphibiosAmphibios Posts: 158
    Oh no 🤦‍♀️, I think I’ve been making alkanet fertiliser @Butterfly66
    I thought it was borage and I mixed it in with coir because I haven’t been able to get compost.
    I will have to put the mixture at the bottom of the planter so the sun doesn’t get to it :(  

  • Butterfly66Butterfly66 Posts: 970
    Hello @Amphibios, I use it to make liquid fertiliser (as an alternative to comfrey) and I put the leaves on the compost. It regrows if you leave the root in but am not convinced it regrows from bits of root like some other weeds. It’s from the same family as comfrey and borage.
     If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
    East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
Sign In or Register to comment.