Plants you regret planting

Some great plants there DHR...esp the wisteria. Like the way you organize your garden
Never grown wisteria but my neighbour has it on boundary wall and I can enjoy it. For my pleasure I do the pruning!!

Minnie comfrey has deep roots and is difficult to eradicate. A weedkiller like glyphosate should sort it but I am now doubtful it should be used in our gardens so can you deep dig it out? Be alert for those adventitious roots and suckers.

 

Thanks for that, I've even a routine for changing panels.

Six foot panels can be changed by one person with the help of a non-gardener, or "small person." No steps or ladders required.

If the old panel is out. The hard bit is getting the new one in without destroying the border.

I keep a 7' length of thick dowling with a strong screw eye in the end. I screw a matching hook into the middle of the front face of the top rail of the new panel and attach the dowel. Then two of you offer up the base of the panel to the top of slots in the concrete posts, the dowel will swing down and support to the front end of the panel so it's in a more or less horizontal position, a bit "fence end down" is best. You can then step out of the border and stand in front of the near horizontal panel.
Then your assistant steadies the base of the panel on top of the slots, whilst you start to raise the panel using the dowel. Before it reaches the vertical position, the ends of the panel will start to slide down the slots. Second person just steadies it as it starts to slide in. No chance of the panel ending up next door as long as you hang on to the dowel!

 

Sounds a clever way to do it DHR. Makes a lot of sense too so I will copy and paste your system to use as and when

 

thats ruined goofey for me

 

I've no photos, but in the early seventies I ordered by mail-order six conifers. They were delivered by Royal Mail and arrived in one envelope though the letter box, we had them down at the bottom of the garden and thinned them out over the next fifteen years. The last one was close to twenty feet tall when I got rid of it. They were of course Leylandii!

 

I know what you mean
I brought home from work a cute little pot, I worked at Sainsbury's at the time, a primula, an ivy and a conifer. We had just moved in and I thought the corner of our 6foot square front garden was perfect for it ...... it was, for about 5 years
then we needed to get some rewiring and ...Plumbing done , I think it was then we realised.... this plant was about 7 /8 foot tall!!!!

 

I love some conifers, but unless you know the species

 

Loki, not all conifers are like leylandii. They were, are, over planted with no regard for their ultimate size or for their requirements. Many conifers are browning because of disease or exposure to biting winds and planted in wrong places.
If you like conifers consider the following.....
Taxus varieties....Standishii, Coppershine, Aurea and the like are superb. Easily maintained and kept to size; Standishii for example has an old gold colour in winter turning butter yellow in spring and summer; superb. Coppershine has small variegated green and white leaves that turn a vivid copper orange in spring toning down to yellow in summer; a real eye catching mound. They add evergreen structure and form to the garden. I also grow a couple of juniper varieties.....one called Sulphur Spray, not commonly available now, has silver/grey green foliage and forms a perfect dome. Ditto with Blue Star which has superb blue foliage. Cryotomeria Marinka is a tight slow growing variety that is still less than 90 cm after 15 years.
Taxus, compact cryptomerias and many junipers are excellent choices for the garden Loki so dont be afraid to grow them I would not be without one or two conifers
Ps. Conifers here are great for bird life.

 

We still love our "dwarf conifer" we bought from a garden centre thirty years ago, that sits on the top of our koi pool rockery, so do the successive families of dunnocks who've lived in it. The top can be seen from the road and often we've had "tree surgeons," offering to take it down, why would we?

 

Looks good to me.....and healthy too

 

I regret buying and planting variagated pelargoniums. Not only are the flowers insignificant they are plants have no strength and one by one they have died on me.

Another plant, bought from roadside stall and sold as "perfect for dry shade", is a grass that grows at an alarming rate and seeds everywhere. It did thrive in dry shade but far too well I've learned my lesson about buying unnamed plants. I did try and find a name for it but had no success.

 

Alana, dont be put off variegated pelargoniums.......Mr Henry Cox is a beauty; strong, vigorous and colourful. Flowers forever. Vancouver too. Frank Hedley with silver variegation.
All are attractive foliage plants and all flower well. I have had these for many years....cuttings of course.
In my opinion, always buy "named" plants.

 

Ive got a few gold crest conifers in, im going to try my hand at some simple topiary with them, something like this


I started work on them last year i will gradually shape them as they grow.