hoping for a conversation starter...
have you dug up plants you hate?
i don't mean invasives, i just mean - good heavens this thing is ugly, why did i plant it?
i feel guilty to wantonly destroy plants, but i have a salvia i despise (i CANNOT STAND the way it smells) but thrives in spite of my neglect, and i have a shasta daisy plant that does not look like the tall, lovely shasta daisies i see in the stores and love. no, mine is like a 20" shrub, with ratty petaled flowers sitting on it.
NO ONE i know wants these. i have thought of putting them on the edge of the woods - i can't get anything i like to live there, so what the heck.
my "garden" has too little space as it is.
thoughts..?
amy
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digging up plants you hate?
Yeah -I do the angst thing, too. I posted on Freecycle and gave away a whole patch of hostas - 22' x 3' so I didn't have to feel guilty about getting rid of them. And I got the bed dug up for free! Now I have a spruce that has over grown it's home and it is too big to move. I have been putting off sawing it down for 3 years because of the guilt of killing a tree! No help avoiding plant death angst from me! LOL
I have no problem getting rid of or giving away plants I don't like. I actually have a pile of Stellas I just tore about because I have some named dl's in the garden I needed to move. Life is too short and space is to limited for plants we don't like.
here are the hated shastas.
i always thought something was wrong with them (i bought it as a plant pre-bloom last year) , but looking through plantfiles, i think these are a cultivar that is bred to look like this.
(why someone would want ragged daisies is another question!)
but life would be boring if we all liked the same stuff...
amy
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I tend to move,not kill. Some plants respond well to the implied threat and grow better in their new location. I,m also always adding gardens so I have no need to thin out. However, Geum Mrs. Bradshaw is on my endangered species list.
Dave
I hear you Dave, you move them out in to the street or plant them in your neighbors trunk - whatever - it works out well.
Sometimes I just move them to my neighbor's yard when he isn't home! Really!
I, too, move them first but in the case of Forever Stella - OUT they go to the curb. Al is right - life is too short to put up with plants we don't like.
I go through the angst also. I have a rose that I just plain ole don't like. I think I'll move it to the park down the street. If it lives, good for it, if it doesn't, so be it. (doubt if it will survive, too shady)
I'm such a newbie, I'm grateful for anything that grows for me!
to tell you the truth... I hate hate hate digging up the orange day lilies the prior owner planted..... they pop up everywhere.. I just replant them in the woods behind me
and the pachysandra just keeps coming back ... every time i see it in a nursery i think about how much money i can make by selling all the stuff I put in the garbage
the hated salvia (see below - pre-relocation/post haircut) was moved to the edge of the woods by DH - a great solution, since i did not have to touch it. (i REALLY hate the way it smells.) (a lot.)
it seems fine so far.
i planted my sea holly in its place. smile.
the raggedy daisies are still there, but when the landlady came by she said she'd take them but not till fall. i told her i'd put them in a pot and see what happened. i did however buy some REAL shasta daisies - "becky" - on sale for $5 at HD and planted them (in a different location) today. so now i have an all-daisy area which includes actual tall shasta daisies. smile.
i also have a bath's pink dianthus that grows and grows and GROWS. i got it last year and it never flowered. this year it sent up one stalk with 3 blooms and has sat tight getting fatter but not blooming ever since. i think it is due for a radical weight reduction experience.
i'm glad it isn't just me with the plant guilt...
amy
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