Do you have any tried-and-true favorites that seem to withstand just about anything? I have several growing now that come to mind immediately: the St. Joseph Lily (Hippeastrum x johnsonii) shown below, the Indian Hawthorn (Raphiolepis indica), Wheeler's Dwarf Pittosporum, the banana trees, and my Azaleas.
They have not only survived the intense Louisiana heat, drought, floods, freezes, and poor soil, etc., but have flourished.
What hard-to-kill plants grow in your area? -- Jean
Is that the same as plants you'd like to kill and cannot... and manage to like them anyway? Here's one of mine... a primrose that's invasive. The photo is taken at the place I thought I had all the root runners dug up last year, LOL.
What does well are the brazilian verbena, and the echinacea regardless of what the weather brings...
Oooooh, darius, those are so pretty! Locally, the only primrose that survives is Oenothera, a pink variety that is incorrectly referred to as a 'buttercup.' I purchased a pretty flowering primrose from a catalog, planted it, and it croaked. I think the heat here is too much for them. Or else I have a Black Thumb. :)
I also have Oenothera and love it for the pretty pink flowers. It spreads, yes, but by seeds, not roots so I can control it. Not nearly as invasive as the yellow primrose.
I gotta vote for the yellow swamp iris (yellow flag?).
I planted 5 rhizomes a year and a half ago in full hot Louisiana sun, with no special care. I dug over a hundred out of that bed. I have a bunch that were set aside in a plastic tub for my sister (who became ill, so she never took 'em). They have been growing, in the dense shade, with no soil and only rainwater, (completely dry for the entire month of May)and through freezes for two winters. They too have multiplied.
Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. But hey, it's green, it grows where nothing else will, and it has a pretty flower.
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Second choice, aloe vera. Great lizard habitat. LOL.
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I love the "buttercups" you refer to, LSP, no luck getting them to volunteer in my garden, yet. :(
You wouldn't know where I could get some of those St. Joseph Lilies?
Cheri'
This message was edited Thursday, Jun 26th 4:44 PM
My husband would tell you yucca and so would my now gone elderly neighbor. My hubby used to mow his mothers and the just came back bigger and better. LOL My neighbor used to dig her's out, have me dig them out, we tilled them out and alas they grew to spite her. LOL She always referred to them as 'candles of heaven'.
Cheri, those pink 'buttercups' grow wild all over the road edges and neutral grounds (median strips). I have seen them in plant catalogs listed as Oenothera (and also as Missouri- or Evening-Primrose). Years ago, I dug up a clump or two and planted them in a pot. They managed to hang on, but were slow to come back. Unfortunately, I left the pot at my old place when I moved.
I was glad that darius wrote that they spread by seeds and not by roots, so if I try them again, perhaps they won't take over the garden.
Do you have a picture of the swamp iris? I don't believe I'm familiar with that one.
And if you would like a St. Joseph Lily, just send an e-mail with your address and I will dig some up and send them to you. I have a few that I tore up out of the ground last year and tossed against the side of the shed -- and they took root and grew! They make more bulbs, but thank goodness they are not invasive. I would have to take a flame-thrower to the yard! LOL. -- Jean
P.S. And put something in the 'subject' line of the e-mail so I'll know it is you, and not accidentally delte it as junk mail.
O boy! Thanx LSP. going send that email now. =)
I've tried transplanting the butter cups, without success. I refuse to buy what is essentially a weed from a catalog. lol. You are right, now that we know it comes back from seed, I'll have to try to collect some seeds. It's not a priority right now, the lily garden is. =)
edited to add: forgot to address the swamp iris!
I didn't take pictures of it, but it looks like these. http://plantsdatabase.com/go/666/
Mine were 6 ft. tall in full hot sun. Bloomed in April, I think. Lots of flowers per stem, but the foliage is taller than the flowers, so it made a better cut flower than garden flower.
Thanx again for your generous offer.
Cheri'
This message was edited Friday, Jun 27th 9:17 AM
Crown vetch http://plantsdatabase.com/go/1312/
Years ago, at a previous homesite, I sowed a bank with multiple sprigs. The plants became so invasive I had to contain it with a string trimmer. It would run under the mulch, surround, and grow up into the adjacent shrubs.
I rate it right up there with our southeastern nemesis -- kudzu.
how about St. John's Wort??? can't kill it, spreads fast as fire and years after trying to reclaim my bed, it's still coming up nice and healthy.
"how about St. John's Wort?"
my two shrubs are beautiful, but them I have to give them a trimmin' every fall.
http://www.gardengym.com/29.jpg
how about goutweed(Aegopodium)......this can eat one's garden....in patches, or around the base of a Tulip Magnolia, very striking! E.
Lunaria!!! Money Plant!!! I can't get rid of it and can't kill the things. Ugh!
I'll take any invasive primroses you've got, Darius (or anyone else!)
louisa sent me some pink ones but they got lost in the mail and were dead as doornails when they arrived... so I'm taking all donations for invasive plants... goosenecks, pink and yellow primroses, whatever else would take over and choke out the nasty thistles we get on the side of our house!
:)
Oh Boy, can I add to this list!
4 o'clocks
Dayflowers
Daylilies (esp Orange)
'Old' purple Bearded Iris
Crocosmia
Lamium
I'd have to add purple verbena, mint (of course), oregano, salvia coccinea and four o'clock. Then again it's nice to fall back on them if you need to.
This message was edited Saturday, Jun 28th 12:00 AM
how could I have forgotten ligustrum?
You can't kill it, thank goodness it doesn't spread.
I've got a whole row of bushes that are at least 30 years old. There are at least 20 bushes along the back fence. Every couple/few years I chop them down to the ground, figuring if they come back, I'll let 'em stay. They always come back. Every single one. I dug a few out, but must have missed a root, because at least one of those is coming back. Now I'm starting to worry ... will I ever be able to get rid of these things? I'm going to want to reclaim my back fence, eventually.
But that's a worry for another year ... lol
Rudbeckia and Echinacea! Very stolinferous as well as self-seeding everywhere!
Maiden Pinks are one of my favorites. They like to bake in the hot sun. This one is 'Artic Fire'.
Oh how I dream of having these flower problems one day...LOL Having just started my garden a year a go on my plantless acre, I'm just desperate for something beautiful to come invade it. I'm sure I'll be singing another tune when it does... but for now it sounds wonderful..lol
How about blanket flower. Had a few about three years ago and now have 100's everywhere. I'm glad I like them.
I don't have much in my yard yet but my girlfriend is griping about the bananas that have taken over her back yard. She's been trying to kill them for 2 years with no luck. Against my DH's objections, I'm going to take some of them off her hands but I'm going to plant mine in containers. I don't need the headache!
I was just talking to a neighbor Sunday about banana trees taking over the yard. He had to promise to keep his new tree in a pot, or his yard man would quit. lol
baby maple trees! I have them EVERYWHERE, they were really abundant this year when the little whirlybirds came down and filled our gutters... I have several trees now growing every foot or so, plus a line of baby trees in the crack of the drive.
When I planted the first two sickly-looking banana stalks, my DH had a fit because he said they would eventually take over the entire yard.
Three years later, although they have grown big and beautiful, they stay in a nice, neat clump. Sometimes, pups appear around the perimeter of the clump, but so very close to the original clump that they bend outward a little. (So I had to tell DH, "SEE??? They aren't going anywhere!" - LOL)
you've got well behaved bananas, I see. =)
and beautiful, too.
I've never grown 'em, so I don't know, but I've heard the horror stories.
They aren't as bad as bamboo, tho!
Cheri'
Boy, can I list a lot:
Russian Sage, the stuff keeps spredding and spredding. It seems like every time I go out in that section of the yard I pull it up and it just moves a couple of feet and comes up there.
Morning Glories, I made the mistake of not removing a couple of years ago in the fall and now there everywhere.
Tomatoes, if a couple of them drop off the vines (and I never get them all) then they come up everywhere. I sometimes wonder why I bother starting the seeds each year. But I wouldn't be sure which plants are coming up and starting seeds in the winter is the most fun.
Blackberries, Daylilies,....well there are just a few and this doesn't count the weeds that come back no matter what I do. LOL it helps living in California where nothing really dies unless you stop watering it.
I can't imagine tomato plants that just come up like weeds. I should be so lucky!
It's true, Zuluqueen. Cherry Tomatoes are the worst, for some reason. I blame the whole "tomatoes as weeds" thing on the birds.
Cheri'
I am a nut for home-grown tomatoes. I hate the ones in the grocery store. If they're as easy to grow as they sound, I need to try some. I especially love Romas and those little Grape Tomatoes!
Funny reading about the tomatoes. Our nextdoor neighbor has a huge vegetable garden. We were telling him how we found lots of volunteer tomatoes in our yard this spring...and had no idea how they got here. He said he tossed his plants with tomatoes attached into a pile last fall and the birds probably planted them for us...LOL Now this is an invader I can appreciate...love my maters!
Regarding the Evening Primrose - Oenothera speciosa. The Pink Evening primrose has a white flower with pink or red veins. I have the Showy Primrose which are pink with yellow centers and they spread by their rampant roots. Even a tiny piece left in the soil will produce.
Janie I posted the package to you about three week's ago and had you soaked them in water they would have been fine. When I received your mail this morning telling me they had just arrived I was shocked as I also sent to other folk just before I mailed your package and they received them in good time. Flowox even posted a photo showing how well they were doing. Perhaps you should contact your local P.O. and make enquiries!!
Geraniums!!!!
We moved inland to a very hot area. First thing I noticed is a beautiful geranium... It was in full heat, not watered and was still in the pot it must have came in, sitting on it's side and growing like a weed!
Heart's ease,aka Johnny-jump-ups, Viola tricolor. I use them as a flowering mulch, them and the wild daisies. Foxgloves, feverfew, "the awful pink weed" (Silene catchfly), heck, most of the stuff in my gardens - even the old garden roses have eaten up entire beds. I let the flowers run the gardens - the inmates have taken over the asylum and I'm their happy co-consprator!
Margaret, I'm going to. We've had other packages "delayed" in the past - our mail carrier doesn't get to our house till nearly 6:00 p.m. most days, and we often get no mail for a spell then get deluged. Something's amiss.
I wish I'd have tried to revive the plants but they were like they had been cooked in the mircowave or something so I decided to just let go of that idea and move on.
Thanks again for sending them to me, Margaret. You're such a wonderful friend.
Love
Janie
Rudbeckia and Echinacea taking over a couple of my beds.... coreopsis, it's taking over another, though I really don't mind any of these. :-)
My irises breed like rabbits... it doesn't matter if I throw away some bad tubers, they grow in the compost!
Blackberries-- I mow them, they come back thicker... MINT! I'm going to use it as a ground cover around my driveway I think. :-) Can't KILL the stuff.
I also get volunteer tomatoes all over the place and I haven't bought a marigold seed or plant in years! They just keep coming back and coming back. I did finally get rid of my 4 o'clocks, we built a deck over where they grew. :-)
And I can't forget my wheat.... everywhere I put straw down, I end up with really nice wheat.... LOL
Melissa
Now I come to think of it - potatoes!!! They appear in the most amazing places and how they have the audacity to grow alongside my Robusta rose is really quite inexcusable!!! :-)
You guys are killing me! The plants you have listed would not grow here if I said novenas over them. I'm so jealous :) -- Jean
Hey SweetPea,
I feel your pain. I just bought Felder Rushing's "Tough Plants for Southern Gardnens". I noticed that a lot of the plants in his book are also recommended by Dan Gill. Felder has a web page that lists a lot of the plants in the book at: http://www.felderrushing.com/tough_plants.html
Maybe there are some plants listed that you had not thought about. I'd love to grow lavender and peonies but I know it ain't gonna happen!
Mary Ann
Mary Ann, I don't know who is funnier, Felder or Steve Bender (editor of Southern Living garden section & author of "Passalong Plants"). I have several of Dan Gill's books also (not that any of the books will do me any good if I don't take their advice).
Don't even TALK to me about lavender and peonies! Every single lavender plant I have ever planted has croaked. And the peony bush that I dragged back from Chicago, almost a thousand miles, on a Greyhound bus, also croaked.
I HATE that all those gorgeous flowers and shrubs I see in plant catalogs stop a Zone 8. It's just too hot to live here! You know what I'm talking about.
