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Is it just me?!
penelope19
Posts: 27
in Talkback
I have a hebe in my garden which has started to overtake everything and it's straggly and very branchy at the bottom half but with nice leaves at the top and will flower in autumn/winter. I can't really prune it because as I say it's just thick bare branch at the bottom so I have decided to take it out but I always feel guilty taking a plant away when to me it is a living breathing thing!! Am I losing the plot?? (excuse the gardening pun....!) Does anyone else think this way too?
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Can you take some cuttings from it? That way it goes on
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
No penny it comes with the job
I have been watching an old and scraggly ceanothus(??Spelling
) but haven't had the heart to take it out yet. It gave such a show of blue as if it was trying to prove its worth.
I expect the chairman will have to make the decision then the surrounding plants can blame him
I'm not dotty really
only my plants are the only ones that don't answer back
I'm being big and brave this year and removing anything that doesn't look good. This is the theory anyway
But when I get to all those interesting things I've grown from seed, and those that are fairly unusual and you don't see very often and those that some insect likes to eat......
We'll see how I get on
In the sticks near Peterborough
I am the same. I can't bear to chuck plants away, even when I don't really like them, I dig them up and wander round and round trying to find somewhere to shoe horn them in.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
I have about 2 square metres of over enthusiastic geranium phaeum I cleared out of two beds I have revamped this spring. They are parked on a tarpaulin sheet where I would normally have a table and chairs because I can't bring myself just to bin them all. Maybe I'll find someone who would like some and maybe there'll be space to put some in when I clear the next bed along.........
Meanwhile I keep them watered and talked to and they're doing fine and flowering and are full of bees. It's a good job I kept them as some turned out to have white flowers and are now potted up and being nurtured.
If I had a plant that was still good on top I would dig it up, make a larger and deeper hole, put a good fork full of manure in it then replant the plant up to just below the good part. I have done this before with hebes and lavenders, and they have always been ok. (Don't forget to give them a good watering!).
Thanks for all the comments, having a good smile at them; thank goodness its not just me!
What a good idea Norfolkdumpling, I might try that cos it really is nice on the very top half, and I just don't have the heart to throw it away! I might take a couple of cuttings from it too beforehand just in case, and then I may not feel so guilty 
Loving your idea Nutcutlet keep us informed if you manage it..haha
If a plant is horrid I don't have a problem getting rid. If it's ill or damaged I will try and revive it with appropriate pruning and feeding and I have been known to give notice to non performing plants - buck up or out - and they often respond well.
However I do try and find homes for good doers that cope with my garden conditions and especially if they're good for insects like my phaeums which flower early and attract bees. Can't bring myself to bin excess hostas either and I have rather a lot of those in pots waiting to be found a home along with another plastic sheet full of filipendula which will go out by the pond once I've cleared that bed of weeds and over exhuberant flag iris. The cows next door enjoy eating those..
Hebes respond well to severe pruning, but in my personal opinion, a plant that doesn't work goes!! That is why I have a 12 year old bush honeysuckle that is huge, looks like nothing delightful at all, and only gives any pleasure for around 2 weeks a year!!!! Each year around now when I look at this dull, lumpy green bush I swear to get it out - yet it is still there. I am totally ruthless - but not with my own plants.