I am really annoyed by plants that don't perform like the picture on the packet.Â
I'm quite impressed by any seed that comes to faintly resemble the colour on the packet. I take it all with a a tablespoon of salt, unless I have grown them before.
Went out of my way to pick white Lobelias this year for baskets, so picked up a seed packet with a lovely flush of white in the picture. Just wanted it to spark off against the pink fuchsias I had propagated. First one came out white, now have just as much purple and blue.
- Last year I had a true red rose and red monardas, not the exact match but good enough. This year, I have two new roses (darker red which I expected to be truer red and a pinkish-red which I expected pinkier) and some red pelargoniums and everything clashes! And I want to keep all the plants.
- Clematis in its second year that looks worse than new plants from a garden centre. Maybe I should buy a new plant every year to get at least some flowers.
- Strawberries getting ruined by the rain.
- I cut a broom back hard (following bad advice) and 2/3 of it died. I cut a buddleia back hard (following the usual advice) and as a result, it's unhappy and only slowly regrowing and I have a gap in my shrub border. While much nicer and happier buddleias are growing from wall cracks around the village.
My neighbour has an extremely large Eucalyptus tree in his garden which is just his side of the hedge line. I spend more time than enough clearing up the leaves which continually litter my garden. Creates too much shade. Have spoken to him about it he refuses to do anything about it. Says he can’t afford it.
Front border has ended up very twee with mainly pink, red, and white colour scheme. Need to inject some dark burgundy etc to add some sophistication, but I have a million things elsewhere to do so I leave it
Sawfly
P. Virginal, huge and boring with no flowers but plenty of black fly
Depending on mood, I can be a very 'glass half empty' kind of person and on those days I can't see anything but what's annoying me in my garden! However, being sensible...
@Janie B , I feel your pain on random death in a group! I have six Japanese anemones which seemed to be doing fine and one has turned up its toes over the last few days and now another one isn't looking too great! I also had four out of thirteen rudbeckias grown from seed that just wilted and died overnight in their pots - very annoying! Three garvinias in pots - two have started to wilt but the other is fine...
I like birds - I really do but now every summer, a large flock of starlings likes to perch on my Portugal laurel and crap like mad. I used to like to sit on a bench under it cos it was nice and sheltered...but not now...and the smell is not great! I'm now considering chopping back the laurel and I really like it as it is...without the birds!
We've been getting a lot of warm, breezy days lately and I shouldn't complain I suppose but, goodness, it doesn't half dry things out. I'm reluctant to go outside now just after lunchtime to see so many things limp and floppy despite watering the night before! Maybe we shouldn't have bought a house so close to the coast?!
That'll do for now. Honestly though, there are lots of good things too!
About the cat/frog issue, I certainly hope not. I have been hearing a croak from the dyke (not a human) behind us which, after the rainfall has a reasonable depth of water in it. So maybe he's having a change of scenery. And to think of all those juicy slugs I hand fed him. Ungrateful.Â
My crab apples are coated in aphids, but I'm taking that an indictment that I'm not watering them enough. I keep clipping off the encrusted growing tips and there is less and less crab apple. Not a good plan.
Having chosen the wrong roses to grow over a large arch. They sit and snigger at the arch and refuse to have anything to do with it.
A new DJ garden studio two doors down that have pounding base night and day.
Lastly a neighbour burning an entire deconstructed shed - plastic bits, mdf and all - on a small chimnea. That's two months of choking black smoke. I implore them to take it to the dump, now that it is open. I can imagine murder being done in the gardens of small locked down terraces - what with all the all-day-bbqs, kids screaming, parties going on all night, practising DJs, and 50 relatives coming over to celebrate.Â
Posts
Grass in generalÂ
Male dog wee killing newly planted edging
Front border has ended up very twee with mainly pink, red, and white colour scheme. Need to inject some dark burgundy etc to add some sophistication, but I have a million things elsewhere to do so I leave it
Sawfly
P. Virginal, huge and boring with no flowers but plenty of black fly
Endless dockÂ
Leylandii, need I say more
@Janie B , I feel your pain on random death in a group! I have six Japanese anemones which seemed to be doing fine and one has turned up its toes over the last few days and now another one isn't looking too great! I also had four out of thirteen rudbeckias grown from seed that just wilted and died overnight in their pots - very annoying! Three garvinias in pots - two have started to wilt but the other is fine...
I like birds - I really do but now every summer, a large flock of starlings likes to perch on my Portugal laurel and crap like mad. I used to like to sit on a bench under it cos it was nice and sheltered...but not now...and the smell is not great! I'm now considering chopping back the laurel and I really like it as it is...without the birds!
We've been getting a lot of warm, breezy days lately and I shouldn't complain I suppose but, goodness, it doesn't half dry things out. I'm reluctant to go outside now just after lunchtime to see so many things limp and floppy despite watering the night before! Maybe we shouldn't have bought a house so close to the coast?!
That'll do for now. Honestly though, there are lots of good things too!
My main gripe this spring/summer is aphids, everywhere, bloody everywhere. Even on the roses that never had them before, even on the zucchini that have always been fine. There are aphids on the aphids. I have put down bait to kill what seems like trillions of ants, who were harvesting them. Still have a few ants left and still more aphids. It’s relentless. Tried ladybird larvae (most arrived dead), then lady ladybirds (even they hated the aphids and after the briefest of nibbles, took off), then lacewing larvae. Still have aphids.
Oh, and I have never seen so much black spot as this year. Roses in my garden that have never had a single leaf affected, are plagued this year.
argh 😩Â