Take Five: Plants We Regret

An interesting idea. It was suggested recently by Hoover Boo from her Piece of Eden blog that I create a post about plants we regret having planted. While regret is an emotion I like to move on from, it is worth sharing plants that for any number of reasons did not cut it here at Chickadee Gardens. We all have them, after all; that thug that gives you goosebumps wherever you encounter it. Red flags raise and you immediately share your experience hoping to shift naïve gardeners away from the mistake of their lifetime. The thing is, what's problematic for me might be fine for you. Now, I'm not talking invasives, those are a no-no for me, period. I'm talking about plants you wish you had never introduced to your garden. I rarely if ever talk of such plants, choosing to focus on successes and the pretty picture. 

I forget that it is worthwhile to remember mistakes.

I know I'll ruffle some feathers here, but every gardener and every experience differs, so I'll put it out there and present five plants we regret having at Chickadee Gardens.

Crocosmia was here. And there. One of the few plants that was here when we moved in and I see why, i.e., those evil little corms could withstand a nuclear blast. At first I made the mistake of digging it up and moving it around to other blank parts of of the garden our first summer here thinking it was pretty and, well, I like orange. Having so much ground to cover I thought it was a blessing to spread "free" plants around the property.

While I do like many cultivars (such as C. 'Solfatare' in the olive-green foliage in the center), Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora is not on that list (of which I'm sure this is). I regret planting it, or rather moving it, due to its invasive nature. It spreads by corms and seed and in heavy clay soil is a bear to dig out. Three years ago I dug it out wholesale, I thought. It took about three days of massive heavy, wet 30-lb. clumps of corms with soil attached into wheelbarrow-after-wheelbarrow. They were dumped in the chicken yard to decompose into an undignified death with the aid of scratching poultry feet digging for worms. They survived full shade, chicken scratching, no water and not actually being planted as they were just dumped on the ground. At least they have never really bloomed and pose no threat out there so I leave the clumps. 

In their original position, I have been faithfully removing it as they pop up regularly. It is one that will likely always be in the soil, as it had covered large areas of soil by the time we moved here. Also, in order to look decent, it takes much more water than what I'm willing to give it. In fact, it has outright completely turned brown in the height of summer with "regular" summer water. Large brown patches of this, which also become flattened and fall over, in the middle of summer, no, thank you. Bye bye.

Next on my list are Hydrangea macrophylla forms. The only real reason is summer water, if I'm honest. These were on the property when we moved here and FM really loves them so they stay. But every year they require water at least every three days, more in dry August and September. Who the hell has time for that nonsense? Hydrangea serrata, aspera, paniculata and quercifolia species are more forgiving, but all do like some summer water so not ideal for the dry summer climate in which I live.

Very pretty but so much trouble. Is it worth it? This year, despite the fact that they will not bloom if I do so, I'm cutting them back hard in a few weeks just to keep them small and not needing so much water next summer. I know that's blasphemous but the alternative of hundreds of dollars of precious summer water - is it worth it? For us? No, it is not. I haven't decided whether we will remove them altogether. We'll see how this summer goes and re-evaluate.

Nasturtiums are the country cottage quintessential flower, I know. I adore them for they evoke emotional connections to childhood and happy memories. I planted my share of nasturtium seeds around the veggie garden when we first moved here. They have since cross pollinated and there are now dozens of interesting colors and patterns growing here.

Here they are mixing in with pumpkins. Mind you, this is after I pulled out hundreds of seedlings. I am not exaggerating. HUNDREDS! Really.

They go everywhere and while I still find them charming, they have left thousands of seeds in the soil making certain they will be around for decades. I don't think I would mind so much except that they only look good for a couple of weeks then quickly become completely engulfed with black aphids and look terrible from that point on. It's disgusting, but I will likely keep them around here and there as I consider them "aphid traps" - that's the only plant they seem to go after. I guess I'm surprised how incredibly prolific these are, I did not expect such fertility. If I had to do it over again I would likely not add nasturtiums to my garden.

Columbines, rather Aquilegia (probably A. vulgaris), make my teeth grind. One day a well-intentioned friend said, "Hey, Tamara, go pull up some of those seedlings. You'll love them. Help yourself!" - and I took about two plants. Now there are hundreds. I don't even like them, I don't know why I planted them in the first place. They seed everywhere and get powdery mildew. Plus, their evil roots are a pain to dig up. They seem to persist no matter how much I think I have successfully removed them.

Bad, blurry photo which was likely subconscious on my part as I don't want a pretty picture of them. OK, I have a few Aquilegia formosa, our native columbine that I adore. It is a polite seeder with only a couple here and there in the woodland garden. I also have A. 'Black Barlow' which is quite fertile but not as bad as these. Plus, I like the color and form. Forgive me, columbine lovers, I cringe every time I spot new plants in the garden. I'm talking 300' away from where they were first planted. They even grow under my deck. Under. In fact, a friend visiting the garden mentioned that plant as being gorgeous above all others in the garden. An under-the-deck plant. **sigh** I think I cried a little when I heard her say it.

Sedum rupestre 'Angelina' is one I actually dedicated a whole blog post about removing I regretted it so much. It came, a small demure bit of creeping sedum, as an extra on a pass along plant from a friend our first summer here. I thought "Oh, there's that Angelina....kind of pretty, I'll leave it and see what it does."
 It quickly overtook large areas of the labyrinth garden apparently while I was asleep at the wheel. I still, a few years on, find bits hiding among the basal foliage of rudbeckia. This is a sneaky, can't-kill-it sedum that spreads like wildfire in my garden. Also, the color is not my favorite. It looks sunburned. I regret allowing this to spread at all. I'll be paying for this one for a long time.

Honorable mention - Rosmarinus officinalis 'Huntington Carpet' (OK, I know, it's now classified as salvia but I'm not ready). I love this plant, I really do, but I have my doubts as to whether it's really 'Huntington Carpet', which is supposed to be a prostrate form of rosemary. While it does kind of cascade down, if I let it it would get 3' tall, not 3 inches. What I regret is that I planted this and let it get established while it continued to grow in a form I did not want. I wanted a ground cover, a true cascading low growing groundcover to spill over the (obscured) ledge of this part of the garden. I should have taken it out after its first year and replaced it with Arctostaphylos uva-ursi or kinnikinnick. The trouble is the latter is so painfully slow-growing that to do it now would take years for it to catch up to the rosemary and would be smothered in the process. Now I have to take a hedge trimmer to the rosemary every year as my punishment. Live and learn.

So. A variety of plants for a variety of reasons that do not please. OK, let's start the conversation. How about you, what have you regretted planting?

Here are a few runners-up:

- Strawberries - they need to be in containers, not in the ground - trust me.

- If you don't love orange, never ever plant Eschscholzia californica. I happen to love them and they are native wildflowers, so they stay.

- Calendulas are pretty but boy do they multiply by the thousands like California poppies; I love them.

- Carex comans, too. I find seedlings of these all over the place, luckily they have almost no root mass so yank out very easily, and I do love them.

- Alchemilla mollis is evil - it was here when we moved in and I quickly set about removing it. Seven years on I still find seedlings that are difficult to remove from heavy wet, clay soil. I would like it if it were not so aggressive here, but it's terrible.

- Drumstick alliums seed everywhere but when little are easy to remove from unwanted areas.

- Tetrapanax papyrifer is poised to become a forest if I don't watch it. Good thing I love it.

That's a wrap for this week at Chickadee Gardens. As always, thank you so much for reading and commenting, we love hearing from you! And thank you for the great blog post ideas, they are wonderful, especially in the middle of winter where I can peruse my library of photographs for future blog posts. Keep them coming!