Y ES, AND THE CHECK IS IN THE MAIL, and that rose you’re about to buy is nonstop, that petunia self-cleaning, and the grass-seed mix? It’s low-mow! Uh-huh. Now how come I have flowerless moments and have to deadhead regularly and the only thing that’s nonstop here is the mowing? Oh, and there’s also the fact that my 20-year-old “dwarf” shrubs are not so little anymore. Thanks to Andre Jordan for another Thursday doodle, the perfect catalyst for a holiday weekend rant: What are your garden regrets? Grab a cold drink and let’s make a list together.
doodle by andre: it’s so regrettable
July 2, 2009 By 45 Comments
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my life in a cabinet of curiosities
Oh, that’s an easy one: this silly Franklinia! I knew exactly what I was getting into , but plant lust and a half-off price of $25 got the best of me. It’s still kicking, but I’m going to have to spray it with BT and Spinosad and horticultural oils every year. First winter moth, then aphid. Gah.
Slightly less: a Pennisetum advertised as ‘Foxtrot,’ supposedly reaching 7 ft., actually ‘Moudry,’ a more restrained 2.5 ft. Still interesting, but the Buddleias I planted in front of it overtook it heightwise straight out of the gate.
Neo-gardener here…so, not too many regrets yet. But, I have two 4qt. pots of trumpet creeper that I am about to put into the ground. And I am shaking in my garden boots!! I’ve read all the horror stories of how these things have taken over fences, trees, houses and even eaten whole sheds alive. But, how could I resist the gorgeous flowers and the promise of hummingbirds in my garden? So I purchased “morning calm” from brushwood nurseries -a link I followed from here! And I am hoping “morning calm” is true to its claim and stays between 8-16′…not 30′-40′ …but I realize there is a good chance it may become my first real gardening regret!
Oh so many regrets! Like not yanking out the Canada thistle before the seed heads burst last year. Like letting the Queen Anne’s lace get a foothold. Like not recognizing all the volunteer honeysuckle growing all over my yard. Oh, and accidentally killing my Japanese maple. Oh, the humanity!
not buying a self-propelled mower
killing the acer
Leaving my backyard basically unsupervised while I tackled the terracing of my front yard. It has taken me five years, but we now have NO grass. Of course, my backyard, once sunny, has been taken over by the magnolias that I was told in 5B would be only about 18 feet tall. I’m trying to get up my enthusiasm for another day of hacking my way back to some kind of order.
Not starting earlier with trees and shrubs.
Spending so much on plants but nothing on a watering system of some kind. (This year no hose-dragging required, just sump-pumps, but trusty helper Susan and I tote hundreds of feet around normally.)
Ditto on plant-heavy use of $$$: Not paying to bury the phone and electric wires near the house. U-G-L-Y.
My garden regret? That I can’t have one.
Not keeping up with planting seeds.
Not starting seeds sooner.
Not having a gazillion dollars to spend on new hydrants, drip system, rain barrels, plants, trees, mulch, dirt, tools……sigh
Welcome, Susan from Food Blogga. Into every life a garden will fall..maybe just not right now. (BTW, I see that you are into potato salad, as are my crazy sisters at the moment this holiday weekend.) See you soon.
When you plant flowers, and then,when it rains like cats and dogs. Then you look out side,and relize your land is sum what a bog land.
Welcome, Patricia. Did you say bog? I have just declared mine a swamp. Not sure I have ever seen it like this. Quite amazing, if it were not so sad. Oh, well…nothing quite like the smell of rotting flowers, right? See you soon.
That childhood memory of a sunny bank of sweet blue forget-me-nots…now morphed into a nightmare of forget-me-nots popping up EVERYWHERE!
I can’t say that regret is the right word. Mistakes, yes. Disasters, yes. Seed starting, failure for sure. Tomatoes in pots, underwhelming without a doubt. But every one have been exciting in some way, a risk that didn’t pay off but that taught me an important lesson. Can’t regret that!
When I was a newbie decades ago….snow on the mountain. Love it still but enough already.
Greed. Plant greed, that is. I buy little plants, because they are cheaper and I can buy more of them, knowing *full well* that they will get bigger. Then, because I am impatient (and stupid), I plant them too close together. The next year? Overcrowding. Then I repeat the cycle.
Slow learner, I am.
Dwarf blue spruce by the front pathway. So cute and a nice colour accent within the bed but over the last few years, it has decided to jump up and out several feet, now crowding the walk. Dwarf – hmmf. Beware catalogues that say, “Growing to 4′ over a ten year period.” I can say that’s accurate but beware the growth spurt in year 11. Last winter I threatened to cut it down for a Christmas tree, but chickened out at the last minute. But, this winter, it may not be so lucky…
To Ailsa…Years ago I had a blue spruce tree on the lawn of the house, I used to live in. It started to grow too big. I cut it’s terminal bud (the top most part of the tree where you might put an angel or star) and then proceeded to trim it’s tips, like I was trimming a foundation plant. By doing this, the tree, or bush will get thicker, but not bigger. I say “get out your hand pruners, and start!” Taking small bites at first (an inch at a time) all over, and then step back and take a good look at it, from all sides. Keep SLOWLY triming until you get it where you can live with it. Think of it as turning your spruce into a topiary of sorts. Go For it Gardener, you have nothing to loose!
It’s a long list–fooling myself that I have enough son for roses, ignoring the multiflora rose until it stuck a greedy snout inside the front door like that briar in the Sleeping Beauty fable, planting the bishop’s weed despite Margaret’s warning, oh, and leaving the one picturesque old buckthorn to arch over my front walk because it has the look of a tree in an Arthur Rackham illustration, despite the fact that it produces at LEAST 1 million seedlings every spring…sigh.
Insufficient research (or just not comprehending it fully), leading to acquiring plants that don’t have good characteristics for the situation (in spite of being just right in some ways) and are consequently a source of disappointment…
…also, taking advice from people in garden centers who *seem* knowledgeable but are really answering questions without knowing the answers. Bleagh!
Like you Margaret, not getting some good backbone trees and shrubs in earlier. Not thinking about my color combos carefully enough – “Magnus” Coneflower is now proliferating joyously through my red/orange/yellow garden. Overbuying plants. Repeatedly.
Backyard full of thick clay and weeds masquerading as lawn, difficulty making drifts, inability to draw a landscape on paper.
Laziness. Pure, unadulterated, laziness. That’s my big regret.
I’m fairly new to gardening, I think I stink at it but I have high hopes. The peas I planted are growing very well and we’ll have a meal of them, the spinach has grown enough that I can make salad off of it, but I’m a total neophyte when it comes to what to plant where, what to buy, and what kind of ground cover will survive in our heavily shaded & trafficked (& tiny – we’re city folk) backyard.
But mostly it’s the laziness.
2 regrets: 1) Planting some veggies too close together and now they are merging into one giant blob and taking over nearby plants. 2) bunnies. they are cute anywhere but in my garden, then I am seized by bloodlust. Especially when I see that they have eaten my broccoli down to a naked stalk. Grrr.
To Fred from Loudonville (I feel like we’re taking part in some clandestine relationship…),
The jist of your message got lost in my vision of you living in your blue spruce … so after re-reading, I realize you live in a house like the rest of us ;c)
Yes, I have thought of doing what you suggest (in my training days called ‘candling’ — pinching off with your thumb and index finger the soft tips of new growth in the spring) but I feared too much bursting forth has happened already. But, now that I have sufficiently anthropomorphized it in my head, I will re-consider its fate and look at it with new ‘topiary’ eyes.
My regret currently is not reading up on which plants bloom when… and I have a color issue…. I need more colors in the garden…pop over to my blog if you get a chance today…i did a little post/garden walk…tooooo much purple going on….the black eyed susans are not open yet..but when then do..then it will be too much purple and yellow!!!! lordy!
Well over the years, this has been a theme that has cropped up more than once. This year it was the reality that our poblano/ancho peppers were really jalapeno peppers. So I guess our Mexican dishes are gonna be alot warmer this fall….
Welcome, Margaret (wait, do you have me talking to myself now? Sounds like.). :) In visiting many nearby gardens this year, what I notice most of all is that people plant things really close in the vegetable garden. I used to do that more than I do now; now I am able to actually compost (or preferably give away) extra seedlings, not shove them all in. This has taken me far too many years to learn, but you point out a good lesson. (And as for bunnies, well, they are not welcome here, either.)
Welcome, Annie. I love your statement: “I think I stink at it but I have high hopes.” I think you’ve got the bug, as that’s what drives us all to do this ridiculously challenging and time-consuming practice. I am lazier than I used to be; I can remember working so hard each day outdoors on weekends that I could not climb the stairs to go to bed at night. Now, I am a cloth by comparison. I pace myself, little bursts at a time.
Welcome, Delia. (Of course your name makes me think of one of Johnny Cash’s darkest of songs, “Delia’s Gone,” which I am sure you have had said to you a billion times. Love Johnny Cash.) Moving along…”Backyard full of thick clay and weeds masquerading as lawn, difficulty making drifts, inability to draw a landscape on paper,” you say? Me, too. All of that. and more.
See you all soon again.
My garden regrets are usually the same every year. It’s all those lovely seed packets I purchased and never planted. I’m a sucker for a pretty seed pack, especially Renee’s!
Passiflora incarnata, planted to climb trellis, but has gone everywhere else. Never has the fruit ripened and has come up at least forty feet away.
Welcome, Julia. Oh, dear, another traveling plant. A friend told me about something in his yard yesterday that he thinks has jumped the driveway…underground. Scary. And not listed as “invasive” or anything. Nice to see you (and I assume your passionflower will be here crawling on the blog soon at this rate, no?). :)
To Ailsa..My house is called Whimsey Hill, SO i could possibly live in a blue spruce tree. Getting serious, after reading your comment, the “candling” thing would be too little to late. TWO stories… I have a Norfolk Island pine that outgrew my sister’s house. It was a gift from her friend , when my father died 14 years ago. At this house, even though I have the BIG garden, I am NOT into house plants. ANYWAY the norfolk pine grew to about six foot tall. One day, I just looked at it , and said to myself, “give it a radical hair cut, and see what happens”. I lopped two feet off of it’s height (right to the top of where a row of branches formed). I then proceeded to shorten all of the branches in a graduated way, from bottom to top. Now about 5 years late it is still alive, and looking fine….Story 2…. I have a pair of Golden String Cypress bushes. They grew to GIANT , eight foot tall HAY MOUNDS (until) last fall. I decided I was not happy with the NATURAL “shaggy” look of their growth habbit. I got out some STURDY STICKS (8 foot long ones) stabbed them into the ground at the angle of the cuts I wanted to make, (to use as guides) STEPPED back a few times , until I adjusted them, and proceeded to, with the electric HEDGE CLIPPER, trim them. The process took one full day, but now I have two (7 foot) Toparized Pyramids. By next year, they will have filled in, and be two formal elements in the back boarder…. REMEMBER Ailsa, you are in charge of the plants, they are not in charge of you!
As a new homeowner and gardening newbie, I was thrilled to get my hands on as much goutweed and chameleon as I could from generous neighbours. Yikes! Still pulling it out 13 years later.
Also buying expensive much loved perennials for the sun to plant with shrubs that in no short time provided SHADE.
Welcome, Deb. Yes, the gifts that keep on giving. Oh, dear. And the reality of success with shrubs…which bring shade. Oops. Well-said. I used to have coneflowers where I now have hostas, so I get it. Thank you, and do come see us again soon.
I got impatient with my blue cascading lobelia, still in little green mounds. So I bought a seed packet of the only little cascading flower I could find at the grocery store, white alyssum, to sow in between. Against a red wall. D’oh!
Holding on to plants that don’t fully satisfy me for too long thinking: “maybe next year it will look better”. But they never do.
I need to know what’s happening with Fred and Ailsa…
1. Trumpet vine that grew 50 foot up 2 different black locust trees. Yes, the hummingbirds loved it. The black locust was rotting so i had one cut down, but i am left with the trumpet vine attempting to come up all over my front yard. I mow every week and i can now tell when it’s time to mow becus the hundreds of trumpet vine shoots grow faster than the grass.
2. Virginia Rose, a native, i thought would be nice as a border from neighbors, but it did poorly where i planted it due to gravelly soil. I made the mistake of moving it to a prime spot in front yard near the entry and this darn Virginia rose did so well that its underground runners popped up everywhere i didnt want it and also made it impossible to weed due to its prickly stems. And by mid-summer, black spot really marred its seedy appearance. So this past weekend, i decided it all had to go, native or not. Now i’ll have my tidy bed of sedums and daffodil bulbs back again.
elderberry ‘black beauty’. Never got bigger than 2 feet and only a few flowers. Lots of winter kill for the past 4 years. It went out to the curb last week.
To Annie in St. Paul… I was wondering how Ailsa was doing myself????, BUT Let’s give Ailsa a week or so, to MAYBE tackle the BIG blue spuce. I am GLAD that you commented on our commenting! I think it is WONDERFUL, that Margaret, here at awaytogarden has given US ALL a platform to make comments on!!!!! Margaret puts out a topic that could POSSIBLY inspire, BUT readers of Margaret’s blog, YOU are the other part, that makes this whole thing interesting. My SUGGESTION to all of the readers, is to MAKE comments. Short SNAPPY comments are fine, BUT comments with MEAT on them are better to chew on, and comment BACK on. I love typing a comment, and then going back a few hours, or a day or two , and SEEING if someone has added something. I don’t think ANYONE OF YOU have to agree on any of the opinions, Other wise we would all be from STEPFORD, Ct. So let’s all TYPE our thoughts, and make Margaret’s blog, even a BIGGER success than it already is!!!!!!!!!!!
@Annie in St. Paul: I can neither confirm nor deny the *situation* between Ailsa and Fred. That is the management’s official position on the matter. :)
@Alejandro: Ain’t that the truth (with *everything* in life, Mr. Philosopher)? Hope springs eternal, or is it insanity? :)
@Fred: I positively *love* the idea that there could be a town of Stepford, CT, in the world where all *those people* could live. Thanks for that image. Hilarious.
To Annie in St. Paul…. I wonder myself, how Brian G. made out with the advice I gave him on June 19, 2009??? Did he “get” that plant from Gramercy Park in NYC, or did he go to a fancy garden center and buy one???? Maybe, if he looks back at OLD “postings” he might TYPE, and bring me up do date.
Margaret, your BLOG is like a good cup of coffee, ANY time of the day!
This exact thing is going on in my FRONT landscaping. It’s a predicament that must be addressed soon or we’ll be living in the tree! Great cartoon.
Welcome, Rebecca. I think treehouses are fashionable at the moment (small footprint, green…you know: all-natural!) but yes, the case of the towering tree. Problematic. Nice to see you, and hope to again soon.
Thank you all for the vicarious gardening fun. I was heading home jubilant from a realty sale that finally closed yesterday when I drove past a time/temp reading that declared it was 111. That’s right: one hundred and eleven degrees.
Weeks of such nonsense combined with no rain have me currently regretting that I bought any new plants this year at all. With strict watering restrictions in place I feel like quite a bad plant steward. I now look out the windows with my glasses off so I can’t see so clearly all the accusatory wilting going on around me. Yikes!