My biggest garden challenge is too [ __what ?__ ]

roseone33...now THAT'S what I was talking about!!!!

I too, need to add to my original post. Help, I never have enough help. Stripping sod, turning the compost pile, dividing hostas, the never ending ending edging of the beds, whatever, I need an extra person on call.

roseone33 and Marcy_1 - if you find a family of these guys please let me know!

And wouldn't that be great Pirl???? :)

Yes! I'd offer him free room and board!

...too little drop ... as in too little drop in slope, thereby creating drainage problems.

I don't have too many trees, but rather the wrong kind of trees ... silver maple. We have 1 and the neighbor has 2 right next to the fence, and the roots are GREEDY! I have thought about taking ours out, but it provides such good shade for the house and has a nice shape, so I'd feel guilty doing so. I just pray daily that it dies (with all the compost I add to my flower beds, it has no intention to any time soon).

Too little space for me; I don't have nearly enough space for all of the trees and conifers that I want to plant. Maybe tomorrow I will win the PowerBall lottery jackpot and I won't have to worry about too little space any longer. (:o)

I again have to amend my first post. Too many squirrels. They eat bark, break branches, dig holes, tear up vines. Major damage.

I am one of the few people who has WAY too many trees! We have Silver Maples EVERYWHERE, and they make it virtually impossible to get a successful garden going due to both their ravenous surface roots as well as the fact that they cast black shade.

But I will have my revenge! In two weeks we are removing about 15 trees and are having the stumps ground out. We're going to replant with something a bit less voracious....... Believe me, it truly pains me to remove healthy trees of any sort. But our lot simply isn't big enough for all of the trees that the original owner planted as a screen against the back neighbors. I'm sure that they were great when they were little with their leaves hiding the neighbor's house, but huge trunks don't do a whole lot right now. *Sighs*

Too little time.

My z5 garden is really a z4. It's hard on roses :(

Yah but don't we love to garden ? Even after all the sore muscles and the back aches. All the dirt under the nails the smiles when something grows and blossoms.

Too little rain. I am hand watering, but my garden is on fine sand that doesn't hold nutrients or water. I'm waiting for the summer rains to begin, but that is at least 1 month away.

All of the above. At any time and all the time.

POSSUMS !
Hard to believe that they were actually introduced into our two little islands !
They have adapted to urban ,rural and forest land --strip everything ,including the vegetation needed for our native kiwi and other birds now endangered because of possums ... They are poisoned ,trapped and shot on possum hunts (nocturnal) and squashed on the roads ,and still there are millions .
We have had them climb onto the roof regularly , thumping around in the middle of the night ,and they have fallen down our chimney -pandemonium as they hurtle around the lounge ,shredding curtains ,as they try to climb - kids shrieking ,dog hides behind something ,cat escapes through window .
Emelle

I love my gardening, challenges and all. Gardening is not always easy for me to do because I have rheumatoid arthritis head to toe. But I refuse to give my gardening up. It seems like I "steal" a little more of our yard space each year. Thankfully my husband is always willing to till up whatever area I want. I have to admit I am not sure where we are going to put all the pepper and tomato plants this year we let the garden bug get a bit out of control. I add a small trailer sometimes two trailer loads of compost from a local farm to the garden each year. No matter how much soil and compost I add our gardens just don't hold the water, it drys out very fast. Last year we put a soaker hose in the garden it seemed to help. I have considered putting straw over the hose put it would just be a hiding place for snakes!

In Sochi, where I built a house, and have lands for garden, everything grows sooooooo fast. But before I start my garden, there's the realm of weeds.
There are some, which I would never like to get rid of, like Cyclamenes, Primulas, Buxus, Ruscus ponticus, Cornus, to name just few. Those are friends.
But there are also, if not enemies, but invaders, like thorny lianas: Periploca graeca L, Smilax rotundifolia, Periploca sepium .
But what I dislike most are: Ailanthus Altissima and bramble, or blackberry bush, that one is a real torture. I like to eat blackberries, when I walk by along my brook. But I hate fighting with it on my land.
Juri

It was fun reading everybody's post.. I have the same problem for almost everything on the list:) .DH however have learned to keep quiet and say nothing when a shipment arrives..lol.. i think he's just glad its not one of those as seen on TV kitchen gadgets which we dont have room for...
TIME: I work full time and whenever I have the 2 days off, I try as much to squeeze my gardening into that.. meaning, one day to do everything else (besides gardening) so I could have one full day to garden with pleasure...

MONEY: can be a stressful moment when you see a beautiful plant and cant afford to buy it.. My 10 year old son keeps me on check whenever we are at the store with garden centers... he'll go say " mom, you dont need another plant"
WEEDS! they're a pain!!! i have never seen that much weed in my whole life!!!
until of course I've lived here in Florida...
SOIL: sand, sand , sand, ...need I say more?
Too many ideas: I have way too may big ideas for the almost 1 acre space we have but then again it boils down to the 3 major problem above this..
I sure wish I'll win the lottery, not asking for too much just enough to have the garden of my dreams and pay off the big bills:)

We have much too little water here. You'd think at the base of a mountain, be it a very small mountain, that we'd get more run off. Unfortunately, we need a deeper well and run out of water regularly in the summer time after just showers and laundry. My poor plants need more water and lots of it. Does anyone know if those soil additives that retain water really work??
A Stead

Too little money :) Never seems to be a enough for all the projects we have planned.. but thats probally becuase everytime we work on one, three more cross our minds.

Oh, I forgot ........... too many snakes !!!!!!!!!!!!! Just black and garter, but they are there every single day!!!

Moving to WV to take care of my mom, who used to love gardening, too. She's kind of let things go there, so I'm going to have a major challenge - getting rid of all the weeds that have taken over and getting her involved in gardening again. She's getting excited about it, so that's good!

Hey, linjasar, send me some of your snakes--we have too many mice here! LOL I catch one almost every day in the house. Li'l boogers chewed on my expensive college textbooks, and there are little chew holes in the apples on the kitchen table! Of course, I catch them in a live trap, and release them back into the woods...probably the same ones over and over, huh? LOL

KYWoods....what are you thinking? Kill those things! You can get diseases from rats/mice in your house! Don't let your conscience towards little critters override your own safety! I know facts...but won't bore people here.

Connie, I know plenty of facts, too. I have worked in animal related fields for several years and have friends who are wildlife rehabbers. I know that the mice here are free from hantavirus, etc. Besides, we live in the middle of thirty acres of woods, and no matter how many mice I remove, dead or alive, there will always be more. Of course it would help if I could talk Dad into replacing the weather stripping on the bottom of the overhead garage door. You can see daylight under it. That has to be where the critters are getting in! I could move to Texas, where you are, but I would have trouble killing rattlesnakes and tarantulas, so I'm probably better off here...LOL actually, I love the desert and would enjoy a cactus garden...:) Was stationed in Killeen and San Antonio and LOVED it! Thanks for caring!

This message was edited Apr 29, 2007 4:05 PM

I just need more more more space. But really I am blessed with what i have......

Gotta be too little space for me. I give away plants and plant at my neighbors and at work and still want more.

Too little rain during spring and summer - and 600 gallons water storage is not enough.

Too much yard. We just bought a new house and there's a clean palette of 2 acres of property! It's going to take me years to plan and plant for this much property. Except for around the house, it's in direct sunlight.

FrauSnow

Clay – a euphemism for loose red rock, Bermuda grass that is really a ground vine that chokes out anything pretty that happens to accidentally start to grow. NO MONEY to water and buy NATIVE plants that cost much more than imported ones. ? There is something I am missing here!