What plants would you not have in the garden?

Not for space or any practical reasons, but for reasons of irrational, blind prejudice! :D

I had this conversation the other day with an older colleague over an organic wheatgrass smoothie (dont ever be tempted!).

Plants which came up:
spotted laurel, pelagoniums variegated plants (where the variegation is yellow!), and eleaganus.


Also for some reason 'mixed hedging'!

 

Oh Loads. Pure prejudice and history. :D

Beech hedges - had one for most of my childhood around our 1970s bungalow! Beech leaves seemed everywhere all the time!

Laurel - any variety!

I would have once said roses due to said 70s bungalow!!! But now I am finding the smaller patio varieties very pretty.

Leylandii

 

Agree totally about spotted laurel. Planting it should be a hanging offence.

I quite like the vulgarity of pelagoniums. The ones with the multi-coloured, variegated leaves are almost breathtaking in their ugliness.

Viburnum tinus, like elaeagnus, is instant Dullsville. You have the leaves all year round, worse luck.

Potentillas. Hardy, maintenance-free and horrible.

Begonias. Ought to have 'Made In Taiwan' stamped on them.

Cotoneaster. Easy, trouble-free hideousness.

Pyracantha. Ditto. Only lethally armed.

Sometimes you don't know whether you like something or not until it's been in the garden for a while. Take Clematis armandii, for instance. (Sorry, Armandii.) Nice leaves, scented flowers, but a total thug. You can have too much of a good thing. I no longer look at it as a thing of beauty.

 

I think spotted laurel looks quite charming.

 

Ladies Mantle!!!

 

Ladies mantle pops up everywhere!! Looks nice in the right place though.

I'm afraid Chrysanthemum's have my vote followed by forget-me-nots. I have occasionally seen chrysthan's I like though. Third on the list would be marigolds, although I like pot marigolds. Everyone's taste's are different I guess. I don't really associate roses with the 70's etc as I wasn't around but I definitely think there is a renewed interest around them at the moment, and I know plenty of my friends who have recently moved into houses always want a rose or two . I think for me it's about the way the plants are displayed. You could have a formal patterned display with marigolds and pansies (which i would detest) but interspersed in a mixed border and I might think differently. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (cliched as it is). I think every plant has a place....somewhere.....

I love begonia's and potentilla's As armandii says 'cram it in.'

 

Busy lizzies........ insipid, boring, ick.
Butterfly bush..... although I have 2 standard ones if they ever pack it in, never again!
Box...... over used and hum drum
Anything that's Scruffy looking!!

 

Actually I think you should plant whatever gives you pleasure, never mind what other people think. I might wish that the lovely lady up the road wasn't quite so partial to the eye-searing begonias which clash with her Windowlene pink house, but in its own way her garden is a perfect expression of her personality. And it makes her smile.

 

Aaawwww Shiney, you'd be welcome ANYTIME!!

 

Roses, the flowers are ok but the plants themselves are usually untidy and woody. When we move next month (to our 70's bungalow) the first thing I will do is rip out the 30 year old roses.

Eleagnus, Japanese Anemones, Buxus, Ivy and others.

 

You're right, Strongy; Roses are a mess, saved from being total mingers only by the flowers. I can't help liking them, though.

 

You make an excellent point claralou. And although I do love begonias, I can definitely see them clashing with a pink house.... Especially in some of those wacky luminous variations. But if it makes her happy