I do.
At first I adored it – which is why it made it to my garden. Then I embraced it and cherished it year after year. Each winter it would die down only to resurrect itself at the start of spring and my affections grew for it beyond compare.
As I was so enamoured with it, I would take cuttings and plant it in other parts of my garden too. True to form, it flourished in these spots as well, blooming with ease.
Then, the relationship soured. I started to notice that this plant wasn’t being faithful to the garden beds in which I had planted it in. Under the secrecy of night it would spring up in places where I never expected it could grow. First, it was the lawn. Then the paving. Could this plant be stopped?
The time called for drastic measures. It was a do-or-die situation and I wasn’t prepared to lose my garden for the sake of one plant. So, out it came. I was victorious. A conqueror. I had achieved what I had set out to do and won the battle against my garden’s enemy.
Until it came back.
And it’s still coming back. The lawn, different garden beds, paving, my dry creek bed; is there nowhere this plant won’t grow? So, now I’m vigilantly picking them out – root, by vicious root.
And I will NEVER plant evening primrose again.
Got a plant you regret growing?
Comments
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Oh man, I hear you on the evening primrose, we have it all over the place from the previous gardener. We’ll probably have it forever! For me it’s probably a particularly crazy self-sowing tall aster, it’s everywhere and even though I yanked out a bunch, I missed some and they set seed. Ugh!
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Nandina. The birds eat the berries and deposit them everywhere, high germination rate. I used to love them, for they grew at my childhood home. I even brought them with me to this house and planted them in a prominent place. Then dug them out. But they keep on sprouting. However, I love how the evening primrose spreads about. The flowers bloom at a down time here, after the spring bulbs but before the summer show.
Frances -
Vinca minor! I was young and didn’t do research then! It is horribly invasive and I will never be able to get rid of it! Big box stores still sell it to unsuspecting and uninformed homeowners! Gail
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oww.. I had no idea, that evening primrose has such a bad habit!
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Good grief Stuart..I had a dickens of a time coming up with that fraction on Captcha…too funny. Cracks me up.
Glad you told me about the primrose. I didn’t know. I was going to plant a nice pale pink variety in my bed. Way to funny that you helped it along the invasive route. Kinda like going to bed without brushing your teeth–help the decay process.
I regret the ground cover lamium, a giant abelia that I planted as a front border plant, and bishop weed–oh yea, morning glories. I’ll probably plant something else in the future to complain about. I have found that if I live another year…there will be more mistakes to be had. -
Hi stuart, I didn’t know that about the evening primrose! What annoyes me is when I buy a plant just because it’s beautiful and don’t think about if it is suitable for my garden. I plant it and after a while I can see it suffers, it looks miserable…poor thing and slowly it dies./ Tyra
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Cinquefoil. I tried this creeping potentilla in my garden, thinking it was a nice little, low growing groundcover. The year after I planted it I couldn’t find it, and thought it had died. A few years later, it was everywhere! It out competes almost every other plant. It has replaced my front lawn and is now threatening the neighbour’s property!
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Lemon balm. Never turn your back on it; it self seeds like crazy. It’s everywhere now, even in the lawn. The good thing about it is that it makes good tea, hot or cold.
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Purple coneflower (Echinacea). Seemed like a good idea at the time, then it took over. And rusted. And wilted. And put down really deep roots. And did I mention it took over? Took a lot of shovel power to dig it out (brought to work to share with friends, heh heh)
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Oh dear I was pleased to grow Evening Primrose from seed last year – I wonder if I will regret it.
My personal irritant at the moment is Verbena Bonariense (I cant even spell it let alone say it!). I grew some from seed a couple of years ago and since then there have been seedlings poppping up all over the place. This summer we had one right by the backdoor which grew so big it was causing an obstruction to people wanting to come in!! -
@Betty – 4 o’clocks? Really? They are so pretty and I’ve been trying to get hold of some for ages. Maybe I shall hold off.
@Gail – Vinca minor! Preach it sister – that stuff is horrible on so many levels.
@Joan – thanks for weighing in. Cinquefoil? Nice plant.
@Susan – Echinacea? I could let that plant take over my whole garden with absolutely no regrets. Love it but I see your point.
@Helen – I was so close to planting that verbena in my last garden. Lucky I didn’t, huh! -
For me it’s Lily of the Valley, AND Violas. They are both invasive, and I cannot get rid of them. I sprayed them all with roundup and they came back with a vengeance. I like them…but not in massive quantities! Great Post!
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Do I ever! Let’s see where to start…Morning Glories! After 3 years of pulling this plant out of my garden I’m still getting seedlings everywhere!
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English Ivy, I swear it is the most stubborn stuff. Even my 5 kids can’t kill it and that is saying a LOT!!! Kim
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Houttuynia cordata, the chameleon plant. It’s gorgeous and a great ground cover but it’s as invasive as vinca, plus it exudes this horrible spicy smell when broken. The underground stems are very brittle so pulling it out is not only smelly but pointless. Highly recommended for islands in the middle of parking lots but I rue the day I planted it in my garden.
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Houttuynia cordata, chameleon plant. Not only is it extremely invasive, it’s brittle so hard to pull out, and it smells bad if you break a stem. Yuck!
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I can empathize with your primrose story because it sounds almost like mine. I bout some seed and direct-sowed it in the garden. I was thrilled when the plants germinated and more so when they bloomed and carpeted their spot in the yard. They’ve since spread and spread and there’s no end in sight. Good luck with your own eradication efforts
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Thanks for visiting me, it made me discover your blog (funny, I knew you were the Blotanical adm, but it didn’t cross my mind you were blogging too, but of course it makes sense. Love your way of writing, enjoyable and substantial). Anyway, regretted plants? I seem to be struggling with the previous owner’s ones still – Holly! just hate it, have a huge one choking a lovely cherry, and shoots all over the place, and they’re a pain (in so many ways) to pull out)
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Blue Arctic Willow -
I always liked the look of the shrub willows. Told by my nurser this cultivar was a more miniature variety of an actually very pretty plant, I went and put a few in. Man, was he ever wrong! The plants grow at a voracious clip and becomes a tree in relative seconds, lol. -
Great post! Evening primrose seeded itself all over our garden when I was a child, so although I hate it, I feel nostalgic when I see it. Could I put in a word for Vinca minor, tho? It does very well in a pot, either in sun or shade, so makes a great alternative to ivy (and it has flowers, of course). I have V. minor ‘Illumination’ in a couple of raised pots by a little pond and it adds to the green, jungly atmosphere, but without going beserk.
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Fun topic! For me, its honeysuckle… in one spot I’m really glad I have it, but everywhere else… what a monster! Gets really messy underneath… and impossible to get rid of.
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Oh gosh, for me it was Aegopodium podagraria ‘Variegata’, the Variegated Bishop’s Weed. Even with landscape fabric down it spread everywhere. Horrible seeder and root spreader, but so dashed cute!
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I have to agree with the Vinca minor. I had some given to me by a “friend”. Ya, some friend; the plant took over before I knew what was going on. Took a while, but I did get it all.
I currently have a plant that I don’t know the name of. It was given to me by another friend. This one is a yellow flower that grows 11 feet tall. Absolutely beautiful plant, but it sure likes to spread. I have dug up the surrounding area for the last 3 years trying to keep it in one place.
Maybe it is trying to migrate….No, migration tends to be in one direction only, this thing is heading in every direction at the same time.
I regret the 4′oclocks which self seed everywhere, and the tubers of which grow so huge here in southern CA.