Show us your 2008 gardening OOPS !

We tend to show off the neat, pretty, eye popping side of our gardens. But lets face it sometimes things don't turn out the way we envisioned them.
So don't be embarrassed, we all learn from our mistakes.
Here is one of mine. This area really looks messy, the Fragrant Cloud nicotiana was a real mistake in this area, to big and flopped over. I did cut one back yesterday before I took this picture. I like the Castor bean in the back, and the OSP vine as a ground cover. The pepper plants gave me some very nice peppers.
So I will add this to my 2009 garden notes, so I don't make the same oops again.

I tend to avoid photographing my oops!!
No really, I was just thinking about this being a time to evaluate and plan for next year. I just got done moving an oops--I had lamb's ear planted near the base of a redbud, and there was just too much root going on in the general area, an d the lamb's ear stayed very small. A piece that I moved as a test this spring did much better over the summer. I moved the rest this evening.
My next oop s will be forgetting to keep it watered this week in the heat.
Well I also had some hugely crowded clumps of ordinary bearded iris that I just dug up and ripped out the old center stuff and left some newer sprouts. Next year I want to keep the iris in more distinct pieces, not allow these big masses that turn into big messes for July and August.

I was thinking about putting you oop's photos in my Garden Blog (used to be called Garden Diary) and adding some pictures for plants that I want to use next year. Sounds like a good winter project.
Iris can turn into a big mess if you let them go to long, been there, done that!

I will get a picture for you. My pots out front- looked like a great idea at first but the EEs had spider mites and then trying to get them to grow bigger after recovery with ots of water meant I just root rotted the silver plectranthus. So now I know plec would do great, and maybe it was too hot for the black ee's

See the plectranthus loved the hot afternoon sun and plenty of soil moist crystals in there. AHA!! next year I'll substituet purple millet or another purple grassy thing for the black ee. Thank you ladyg--you solved my pot problem!!!

This message was edited Sep 2, 2008 12:34 PM

Sally, glad I could help, LOL
Now I have an EE that is growing happily in my water garden, now what to do with it this winter? It is also growing these long "arms" out of the pot that looks like baby EE on the ends. I have a few weeks to think about this before I have to act. I just can't face the thought that Jack Frost is sneaking up on me!

I saved these EEs over last winter, I suggest you pull them up before frost and let them dry out, maybe "pot" them with some dry peaty soil?? Last year I took one of those little arms, in late summer, and cut it off and potted it for Swap. Top didn't do much but I couldn't resist pulling it out and chacking- Wow there were crazy roots!

So, Sally you are suggesting I let the EE go dormant for the winter in dry soil? A bit scary for me as I have killed a number of Caladiums this way, but I guess I'll give it a go. Should I let the new plants that I cut off grow in pots over winter?

I tried to keep my baby plants alive for the winter but they shriveled up. : ^( and then I let them go dry. Then when it got warm I brought them back up like my caladiums and they came up 8 ^). I've never tried to keep Caladiums in the house but They say you can. I don't know why my EEs were so unhappy.
The best caladiums I kept from last year- were overwintered (dry) right in the peatmoss like 'soil' from a Big Store Nursery.

I think all my EE's survived except one...I just brought the pots in - plopped em in the living room corner and gradually decreased their water...they died to the soil - then came back up come spring when I started watering again. I got rid of ALL the "non-hardy" ones except one this spring/summer - the hardy ones were put IN the ground - fingers crossed. Too many other big pots to bring in and over winter to have all of those taking up space. Bad enough the plumies have all grown an amazing amount...geez - who's bright idea was that?!?!

I think this is one of my biggest "OOPS" this year. I never got around to getting the yellow water iris out of the pond and dividing it. It was way to big for this little pond at the beginning of the summer and I just ignored it and let it take over. This little pond could have been so much nicer if I had removed 3/4's of this plant in the spring.

Here is another, my poor burnt Oak Leaf Hydrangea. I never got it moved either and it's been suffering out in the bright full sun all summer. Hopefully I will get it moved this fall so it can grow happily next year.
You can add to the list of "OOPS" all the Tropicals I put in pots on my patio this summer. They sure did look great but now I need to find somewhere to put them for the winter. LOL

Here is another oops, This area is full of spring flowers, but by summer and into fall it goes blah! The bad thing is it is right near the public sidewalk so not much of an impact. I keep telling myself I need attend to this area more, I have been thinking coleus for next year. A big full bed of coleus!

Here is another shot of the same area.

Hi. I don't take pictures of my ugly plants, either. Don't want the memories, but hey, I manage to learn a few new things every year....

I think my oops this year was underestimating the rabbits, or overestimating my dog's ability to keep them out. I didn't have a problem before, but THIS YEAR, the rabbits did take some plants, whole plants. They made off with all of my newly planted scented geraniums, and skeletonized a poppy mallow. Yes, I was reading the other thread on "Ravenous Rabbits" and thinking, oh, so I am not alone. But when I got Deer Off, I found that spraying the one that was stripped of leaves caused them to get the neighboring plants. I guess, if bunnies are really hungry, they'll take whatever you leave them. They got my bleeding hearts next......So, do you want a picture of dirt?? LOL.

Rabbit Menu:
Chamomile
Scented Geraniums
Greek orgegano
Poppy mallow
Evening Primrose (they cropped it to the ground. After sprayed, it came back up, but then they took the snapdragons..)
Snapdragons
Bleeding Hearts
Crocosmia
Ascelpias
Nastutium flowers
White Coneflower ("White Swan") Funny, they didn't bother the purple ones.
Tulips

Amazingly, they leave basils alone!! I'm thinking I got all the attention this year because I planted tulips for spring, but they only got one tulip.... I guess Hutch (my guardian angel) petered out when the heat went up.

That's a long sad list~~
Hutch ain't the only one- My dog's energy level has gone back up with this cooler weather.
Funny- once I bought purple coneflower- it got eaten right away, so I never tried it again, or white either.

I have always just split off the smaller ee ears and brought inside to winter over. Matter of fact I just did that with three smaller shoots yesterday. I plant them in 3 separate pots of mix and just keep them with my other tropicals. They remain leafy and sproutin new leaves all winter. I also dug my caladiums yesterday and potted them to keep as well.

My garden oops was using all my zinnia seeds that I harvested last year and then after planting them and they began to sprout lost them all to heavy rains - Next year will keep some in pots until the weather is to be better and will not use all the seed again in one sitting, will spread it over time and conditions.

Lady, I had seen this thread but decided that I just had too many bad looking spots to post. I've been too busy trying to fix them all to photograph them. There is one that I could use some help with, so maybe I can get photos today.

A very large mistake that I made early on was not properly judging the wind factor when choosing plants for my road side bed. Most of the plants that survived, ended up prostrate. I've been ripping these out and replacing them with sturdier candidates. Lots of plant moving going on around here.

Stormy, Here is a plant that I have never has to stake and doesn't flop over. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/831/
Height may be a consideration for your road-side bed. This plant also self-seeds, but is not what I would call invasive.

Thank you to each brave soul who admitted and even showed proof of their errs. I too had many oops but didn't record. We are now transplanting most of the plants that we planted three years ago when first starting to garden at this house. Every thing grew so much larger than we expected so everything was really crowded. Eventually I will have a walkway that will allow me to better tend the front bed so that things don't get so overgrown in the future.

One of our big oops was planting too closely to fence line. My brother runs a small herd of cattle on some of our property and they enjoyed many evenings of munching at the plants that they could reach. That is a real disappointment when you go out in the morning and see the damage. In some of the spots John has taken pieces of lattice and attached to the wire fence so that it deters big heads from sticking through the wire. Minor damage to some other plants within the yard and I am not sure if it was rabbits or deer to blame.

Thanks for starting this interesting thread Lady.

Ruby

ruby--sorry you lost those plants, but I wish I could walk out from my house and go visit a few big heads now and then.!
lady-that's sounds like a neat plant you linked up there. Never heard of it!

Thanks, Lady, I do have some of that knapweed. In fact I just relocated them to a sunnier and windier spot!! In the summer, when you posted the photo of yours, I was amazed at how tall they were. Mine had never gotten more than 18". Maybe they'll get taller now with more light.

Ruby, you do come up with the garden "critters"!

I guess my biggest oops was having a stump ground out in the middle of the front yard. It looked like a pitcher's mound of soil and wood chips. Ok, I thought I'd just dump some urea on it to eat up the chips over last winter. Urea is like 45-0-0 fertilizer... it was getting dark and I was in a hurry and spilled the bag and said the heck with it and dumped the whole bag there. So it still looks like a pitcher's mound with a thin layer of that prostrate weed you see on sidewalks whose name I don't remember at the moment. At least it's green now. I'm reluctant to plant the shrubs I was planning there... I don't know if it's okay or what. It's been almost a year now...

So the way I see it, it's hard to pin down the oopses to one year - next year or the next I might wonder what I was thinking when I did x, y, or z

Claypa, sound like soil testing time.

You know when an idea "sounds" pretty good to start with....and then....UGHHHHHHHHHH
Was growing a couple different types of the OSP...so in the beginning keeping it nicely trimmed as it was cascading down the side of my big pots out front...thought hmmm....would be a pretty ground covering...I'll just throw some cuttings here...and Oh, over there would be nice...and there too while I'm at it. !!! OMG !!! Came back from Grandmas to a front yard of OSP....SOOOOOO not attractive!!!! Lesson learned? "If you drop it - it will root"

Chantelle-----

AND---PLEASE remember the potatoes are edible and super delicious! At least the ones from the lime green OSP's.

I wash them--poke them a bit--wrap them in some paper towels and nuke them for about 3-4 minutes, depending on size. YUMMMMMMMY! I cut them open and eat them with a dab of butter/spread on each fork-full.

TRY IT! You'll like it!!!!!

Haven't dug up my "blackies" yet. Curious to see if they also have yummy potatoes at the root level????? Fork and butter ready!

Gita

Gita,

I had the black sweet potato vines last year, and there were TONS of taters in the soil when we emptied the pots last fall.
But we didn't know they were edible, and we saved them to try & plant new vines this spring....no luck there. If we'd known, we could've had a feast instead!

By the way, there was a girl in my high school named Gita....NHHS '73 by any chance??

Nope!!!!
I live in Baltimore and attended ESH---grad. 1955.....

Gita