Bad Luck Plants

Not talking about weeds, but instead plants that didn't work out, maybe because they grew to have some characteristic you did not appreciate or were hard to grow and therefore unsuccessful for some reason.

I have so many of these, partly because I knew nothing about ornamental gardening when I started out (planted things in the wrong environment, too close, or didn't know how to prune-still don't) and partly because I wasn't afraid to try things out and experiment.

Myrica cerifera and Laurus nobilis both froze out.

Myrtus communisTarentina turned out to have an aroma that made me feel slightly nauseous, although its tag described it as 'deliciously aromatic' NOT.

Armeria rubrifolia never kept its red tinge, just reverted to regular green. Still pretty, but not worth the extra dough I paid for the red foliage.

Lotus corniculatus, grew great, and I liked the clover-like leaves, but the yellow flowers were not so nice, kind of too much yellow all bunched together. Then I started finding them planting themselves in the wild meadow area of my yard. Definitely could become a problem, so I started yanking.

I've made about every possible mistake and am so far still living with most of them....I truly only knew what I'd read in books when I got started here-except for growing annuals in containers. I'm afraid my original ignorance shows a little more each year, sigh.

This is a very personal list,"Your mileage may vary", lol I don't know that anyone should use it for recommendations. These are the classics I've been frustrated with the longest. I'll have to think a little more about the newer stuff.

DH's apple trees that were never pruned properly and got too big. The last one went this winter.

Lilac. huge disappointment. A suckering monster with a great love of powdery mildew. It sends up suckers in the trillium and hellebore bed making me leave it because I don't want to kill the trilliums but I am so frustrated with it and want it GONE GONE GONE....but maybe I'll wait until fall when the trilliums are dormant. :(

Azaleas. not feelin' the love for these. The last one is coming out this year.

Heathers. They hate me. I don't have a single one that really looks good-and I even read the E. Wulff heathers book....

Rosemary-I have the wrong cultivar. I am going to replace whatever mine is with 'Arp', the hardiest one. I hope it'll have less winter dieback.

Kenilworth Ivy-cymbalaria muralis. This is really more on DH's s*** list because it grows into the lawnmower shed every year and he hates it. I love this, but I never actually planted it here. I bought some as a plant filler for a container 2 years before I moved to my house. I will have it forever and ever and ever.

Lemon balm. Melissa officianalis. It is very, very happy here. I almost had it eradicated but then started to miss smelling it and let one or two live. Mistake!

Lonicera heckrotii 'Goldflame". This year's the test. So far it's looking better than I've ever seen it, but it usually looks straggly and not lush. Despite being sold as "not prone to powdery mildew" it gets it every year. But the hummers like it.

Cistus purpureus (orchid rockrose). I have about 10, waist high. Every year I lose another 2 to the weather. And they don't bloom very long or all that impressively. These just are not made for our zone/climate. My friend lost all 6 of his last year.

Edamame. Just like Steve Solomon says in his book "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades", these don't grow here. You get like 4 pods per plant.

Salal. It's so great in the wild, but I think it looks terrible in the yard. Sorry, native lovers. And it's really hard to pull out once it's established.

Clematis---not good when you have a dog. You spend $15 on a straggly little vine, and your dog bites it off, and it doesn't come back. Goodbye $15 x 6 plants. Everyone else does a beautiful job with it---it is my big failure so far.

Plants that I consistently kill that should work here include: heaths/heathers, Coriscan mint (as established in the groundcover thread), and toad lilies (trycirtis). I've had bad luck with lilies in general in the past, but I've launched a concerted effort to make them work for me this year, so we'll see. Right now I'm thinking positive thoughts.

Also broccoli. I'll admit it.

I'm with Susy on the lonicera. I'm giving mine one more season to impress - or it will be finding its scraggly self on the compost heap. (Meanwhile I've put in a standing invitation for my neighbor's Baggeson's Gold to come live with me, as it is on his do not love list and I am in lust with it).

I agree on the salal. Unless you've got a big property where it just sort of grew in naturally (I don't) it just doesn't seem to work. They're even hard to pull out after they've died. Done with those!

Kym, we'll have to check in on each other's honeysuckle travails. (Baggeson's Gold is a good looking shrub. I'll keep my fingers crossed you get to adopt it!)

I don't want to admit to how many heathers I've actually killed. Still, the number may climb even higher if I decide if the few remaining ones aren't worth space anymore.

That pretty little blue rockery plant that grows so well for so many folks around me -- but I consistently kill. Not sure why. I've had such bad luck, I've blocked the name from my head for the moment. Clear clear blue. Love it. Can't grow it.

Lithodora Grace Ward?

Exactly. Thanks - I will never be tempted by this plant again, even as I admire it from afar.

It is definitely cold sensitive. I lost all of mine 2 winters ago. Replanted last spring, and they survived this winter, looking good in the protected areas, on verge of blooming. But I still lost another one in a more exposed area. I bet the people in your area who are succeeding are treating them as annuals----buying the big one gallon ones in spring. The areas where I have seen them looking at their best are Oregon coast properties.

I have not done well with Heathers either. They are still alive, but look rather bedraggled and misshapen because I have not pruned them properly, and they get downright peaked looking in the Suimmer without much supplementary water. Heaths grew better for me, but are now being overtaken by larger shrubs they were planted by several years ago. One solved this problem by growing up into the bush. this worked because the bush (Osmanthus delayvii) is unpruned and therefore very open in form. This unorthodox team actually looks really good together right now blooming at the same time.

Rosemary: It did so well the first few years. I had both upright and prostrate types. The prostrate ones looked so good blooming with heather Dark star (dark reddish bloom). although the latter had a funny shape due to the lack of decent pruning. Then they died completely the year of the big snowstorm, 2006 I think. My upright rosemary did okay in a protected location until this year. Looks terrible with half the branches alive. I don't know if I can save it, but I'll try. Maybe its time for me to try "Arp" also.

Funny - one man's treasure . . .

I got Lithodora started nicely, but decided I didn't want it where it was. It's just too hard to weed groundcovers here - I will be fighting buttercup for a long time, so I need to be able to dig when i weed.

Salal needs to be cut down aggressively, I'd decided. I have it 3.5 feet high in the woods and it's scraggle and looks awful. In other places, it's growing up onto stumps and looks great.

I have a Lonicera - do not know what it is, but it doesn't get powdery mildew. I live in a cool location.

I keep the Clematis in front of a support or growing under a shrub with rocks around the base. You might try growing it up into a shrub, the way they have to grow in nature. The right combination of shrub and clematis is stunning.

Daphnes I can't do - they need more heat than this property can generate. Hebes no, obviously. Heathers kind of languish here, as well.

I killed Corsican mint a couple of times, then got a little pot of it at a plant swap and killed it again. Lo and behold, last fall I was weeding in a place I just recently cleared of grass. The soil there is hard pan clay, unamended. Somehow, some Corsican mint took hold there and is doing well. I don't get it.

Excellent suggestions on the clematis---especially the rocks to protect my delicate stem. Bought another one today at Dancing Oaks, so the advice is extremely TIMELY, thank you! Only bought it though, because it has 8 stems growing sturdily in the pot, instead of just one fragile one ready to be damaged by a child or dog.

Corsican mint is a funny little thing. I gave it what I thought was a primo location in nice humousy soil with plenty of moisture. It limped along, I moved it to a shadier spot and it likewise limped until it died and I thought that was the end of it. The following spring I found a patch of mint under a shrub. The soil there was more dense. It did fine for a while, then it too succumbed. Since then, it has appeared here and there around the yard, usually in the Spring, but sometimes I discover it in the Fall as well. They are unexpected but appreciated, kind of like a random act of kindness.

Holly, it sounds like maybe it's the fussing that Corsican Mint doesn't like. I'll have to remember that and leave it to do its own thing. :-)

One plant that you can grow that I haven't had success with is the Leptinella. All I can figure is just that my place is cool by New Zealand standards.

Kosk, when you plant your clematis, put it an inch deeper than the crown would normally indicate and tilt it at a 45 degree angle. This is supposed to encourage growth of lateral shoots.

http://www.silverstarvinery.com/care.asp
http://www.gardenvines.com/shop/pages/planting-guide-pv-c0-5.html

Here's a good example of a clematis growing through a shrub, a delight that I'm trying to achieve myself.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/peren/gal0619284725149.html

I'm going to try to grow one over a stump and in between the salal and huckleberry this, something that Raymond Evison encourages as this is how the plants grow in nature.

http://www.raymondevisonclematis.com/main/home.asp

Kosk, you made me feel better about losing my cistus last year. Poor thing. I lived a short life. I've decided not to replace it.

I cannot actually count the number of things I've bought, only to have them languish hideously in the garden either because of our weather, or because of my soil. Strangely, lithodora does well for me in the bed on the north side of my house!! It never sees the light of day during the winter. Maybe the plant just sleeps. I've always wondered why it would grow there.

the bergenia. This year is its last. It has to go. I cannot bear the combination of that particular color pink with the yellow daffodils one season longer. In a word: tacky.

Restios. How I long for them. How they hate me. I have one small one that survived the winter. Hope springs eternal.

Allium bulgaricum (now known by another name that I am too lazy to try to find.) these bulbs reproduce like rabbits and the flowers look way nicer in photos than they do in real life. They are a mauve color that works well only if paired with bold blues, which are scarce during their bloomtime. I am pulling as fast as I can.

Most of the heathers look like crap. Maybe it's a matter of pruning. some will be going the way of all flesh this year. I am becoming ruthless.

So many fuchsias that were said to be hardy but weren't.

Clematis, some of them. I admit it. I adore them but they are sooo much trouble. I still have 4 that I bought last year that remain unplanted.

Calla lilies. If only they would grow well for me! I think maybe they get eaten.

Some daylilies. I went through a phase. enough said.

Yes, death to bergenia!

This is the time of year I hate it the most. It is absolutely ubiquitous in my neighborhood as a sidewalk edging. Whoever thought that was a good idea? Without obsessive tending it just grows a foot out onto the sidewalk, collects blowing trash, and rots.

I have a couple of cultivars that are not bad, really, in fact I like certain ones. But the ones in bloom right now just look garish and trashy. Their old leaves need to be removed and they are constantly under attack by vine weevils. Just not worth it anymore. I did see reference to a fuzzy leaved variety in one of my old magazines. It was pretty cool looking, not at all like the usual things you see.

Katie, in terms of your comment that salal needs to be cut aggressively, does that mean that I can cut it way back and it will fill out again? I have a largish patch of it under one of my douglas firs. It was there when I moved in and was nicely behaved but now it looks ratty. I need to rake it out and it's getting tall. Can I whack it without killing it?

another failure: Brugmansia. Why do I even bother with this plant? Never again will I struggle to protect it during the winter only to have two or three scraggly blooms by september. I'm ready to admit my failure and the fact that I live at 47 degrees north.

Oh, and Lousiana Iris. there is a reason why Lousiana is in the name.

Katie---thanks for the clematis ideas. I've selected my shrub that I'm going to try and grow my clematis through. I'm hoping this will also protect it from my dog. I picked a Nandina 'heavenly bamboo' that I totally dislike, but it's so healthy and thriving that it would be a shame to remove it. Solution: grow clematis over and through it!

Bergenia is right up there with grocery store primroses in my 'don't like' list. And yet, I still have a bit of both. Primroses remind me of uptight librarians and the only good thing about bergenias is its common name (pigsqueak). Maybe it's time to purge them and replace with something that pleases me.

Uptight librarians are definitely on my "bad luck" list, too!!! Although I do like the grocery store primroses, lol--But they remind me more of plastic cemetary flowers. Still, I buy some every year. But the snow we had in March made mine look terrible, so I took them out even though they are still alive and composted them. Wasted some $ there. I've avoided Bergenia---have always felt the same way about it. Those I would compare to male sportsaholic couch potatoes. Kind of flabby. (though I do my share of couch potato-ing also).

I have been given those grocery store Primroses as gifts several times and have dutifully planted them, since after all they are living things, even though they seem rather dowdy in form. The color is nice at this time of year, but the slugs love to munch on them, so they look ratty. I do like the other kind of primrose that have flowers on a taller stalk.

Iris reticulata likewise gets devoured by slugs. I keep trying, but it is sad to see their tiny blossoms hosting large, slimy visitors.

I have not done very well with bearded iris since my ground is damp and dense, but I keep trying because the colors are so amazing. My latest attempt is large planter pots with Iris in looser potting soil. Werll see how they fared over the winter come bloom time. I had thought I should try other kinds of Iris instead that would appreciate the dampness, and I do have a patch of successful purple Siberians. I had thought to give the Louisianas a chance to get a variety, but maybe not.

Here's what happens to me with the grocery store primroses -- they come with bright beautiful blooms that sit nicely above the foliage. I put them in the ground and they look cheery. Perhaps the next season they look good (can't remember). From then on, they are crowded, stunted, and the blooms are all small and purple. Like MHFarm, I find it difficult to just toss them, so I've now banished them all to a spot below a bay window overhang. They either live or die there -- so far, most have thrived. I don't fall for the 99 cent impulse buy anymore.

I do like many of the other primulas, although it took me awhile to get over my prejudice.

Okay, look away if you have a sensitive stomach, for this is truly a collage of ick. Took my camera with me while walking the puppy for pictorial representation of the nasty bergenia around my neighborhood.

These are three different yards within short puppy leg distance of my house.

And I like grocery store primroses - when they get congested like you describe bonehead, just lift and divide.

To make up for the nasty bergenia pictures, here is my favorite neighborhood tree in full glory. A little pretty to wash away the ick.

Bad Plants;
I can't grow roses. We just don't get along. They don't like me and I don't like them. Bad plant!

Poor Bergenia. It really is a beautiful plant if it's in a cold enough climate. They're from the mountains of Central Asia and Siberia, so they like a cold season, and rich, loamy soil, which they obviously aren't getting there. They supposedly don't like our clay soil, but mine do fine and I get fewer blooms but pretty leaves, which I like the best.

Who can resist this blossom?

http://www.salisbury.edu/arboretum/SUArbor/Perennials/BeCo/BeCo.html

Kymmco those are not bad plants. They are bad gardeners. Those plants are completely neglected. I'd look bad, too if I were treated with that much disdain. It's hard to judge the plant by that kind of practice.

I think my bergenia are the victims of nice plant, bad placement gardening in my yard. When grown well, I love their large paddle shaped leaves. I have 4 or 5 kinds, and some have great leaves in the winter - they turn a nice red color. The problem is the color of pink looks hideous where I have it.
I'm ripping the old fashioned kind and composting them. Then I'm moving the red ones with the dark fuchsia pink flowers to the 'wishing well' bed at the front of the house. It's currently filled with the old variety. They were there when we moved in. That bed needs to be rejuvenated anyhow, so I'll amend the soil, rid it of weevil larvae, and replant the more compact, red variety and then see how they do.

I like the grocery store primroses sometimes. You can find cool genetic variation if you look for it. They don't ever seem to do as well the second year for me, for some reason. They grow, but maybe I need to inject them with steroids or something.

Kymmco, that is a glorious tree. Wow!

I think there must have been a Bergenia conspiracy in the front yards of Seattle, there are so many of them. I think a small patch could be interesting to show off the bold leaf shape. Large swaths growing in rockeries all along the sidewalk block after block gets to be too much, and they are all the bright bubblegum pink flower color. That white one with a pink blush in katie59's link is downright pretty.

Last spring I planted a Campanula 'Elizabeth' thinking it was vey pretty. This spring I noticed about 5 coming up. Did I unlesh a monster?

In a word, yes.

okay, probably should say I have a lot of experience with this plant. I experience this plant many times a season as I rip out all the babies that are taking over the world. Pretty plant, but a monster.

This message was edited Apr 14, 2011 9:07 PM

Not a big fan of those kind of plants. That is what happens when you buy on impulse. Does it spread buy runners or seed. It has only be in there less than a year. Maybe I can did up before it takes over. Will watch her this spring

Ah roses... I had a few here and there and always battled with bugs and disease. Then I moved them all to one location (in a sunny spot along a N-S fence), thinking I would have better luck if they were in one place. That kind of worked. But, I think they all mostly died last winter - very little new growth and a lot of black sticks. I see another struggle ahead. Some I've inherited and they are the really rampant problem children - pretty blooms but prone to bugs/disease/mildew. Others I've purchased, going for the resistant varieties. I do like the floribundas so maybe I'll ditch the tea roses and get some stronger replacements. I feel quite badly, there is a woman on DG who wants some starts of one I have that she's been searching for, but it is one that may have died. They sure are pretty when they bloom.

Campanula spreads by seed, not runner, so you're okay there. I haven't found them to be so prolific. Some seedlings, but nothing you can't recognize and pull out. Rose campion, on the other hand . . .

Here's a little bit more information on how they reseed: http://www.paghat.com/campanula2.html

Deb, the roses are VERY disouraging this spring. I have lots of black too, and I am thinking it was a double whammy two years in a row that has caused the problems. My only consolation is that pruning goes much more quickly when you cut them WAY back.
By the way, the floribundas have done no better than the teas, definitely depends on the variety.

Purple sage, Pineapple sage, Tangerine sage - I can't keep them alive! Maybe I put them in too bright of light? Maybe I over water?
Spider plants - I love them but more of mine have died than any other plant.

I'm trying them all again this year and I'm praying I don't kill them.

Pineapple sage is kind of tender-it's not that likely to overwinter, so if it died over the winter it's absolutely not your fault.. :) And, let me know if/when you want a bunch of spider plant babies. I have lots of them. I can probably keep you resupplied until you figure out what makes them happiest at your house, lol....I do find them to like a little more water than I'd expected, if that helps?

I wish I could say I was trying to overwinter them but we didn't even make it past Summer.

ouch! That's too bad. Hm, it seems to me (I let mine die a couple winters back) that the pineapple sage liked quite a bit more water than 'normal' sage did-maybe someone else can chime in with their experiences, too.