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Here's another one: Nandina. Very invasive. You have to spend lots of time always cutting it back, pulling up suckers, etc. And it isn't that pretty. Nice red berries, but generally, not that pretty.
Nandina is one of the ugliest shrubs I have ever seen. I find a few stray seedlings occasionally from my neighbor’s yard, but luckily they grow slowly so they don’t get out of hand too fast.
Sorry, folks, I didn't read all the posts. I'm glad to see I'm not alone.
My plant is a lovely hibiscus which blooms with 6" diameter blooms. Gorgeous. But I've realized I planted it under an overhang so it'll never get any water. Duh!
The previous homeowner planted Bishops Weed under one of her azalea bushes. Now, two years later, it’s almost completely circled the azalea. Last year, I dug most of it out, but the few roots that were left, have come back stronger and thicker than ever. It’s grown many times the size of what it was originally.
Since it’s a pretty ground cover, I transplanted some to a bare spot near the back porch where the chickens scratched the soil bare. It’s growing in nice and thick and they leave it alone.
Mint - as others have alluded to it is almost impossible to eradicate
Not really planted but did not get to remove the sweetgum trees in time. Now over 50 feet tall and the 10+ trees release billions of sweet gums into the lawns each year.
Yellow Cannas - someone gave me 5 plants and I planed it at various areas on the outside of my office . God. Those things took off and even though at one time I removed 50 pounds of bulbs they still came back the next year. I felt bad giving people those huge bags of bulbs. They were unsuspecting victims and I distinctly heard the bulbs laugh when they were handed over to the new owners.
(3) Violets. This wasn't something I planted intentionally, but I allowed a few wild ones to grow in my garden because I liked the flower and the scent and the fact that it grew in the shade. Like the Lily of the Valley, it wasn't long before the violets were choking off every other plant. I went crazy one summer and dug most of them out, but I am still fighting the battle. I spotted a few more yesterday. They will be dispatched shortly.
How about you?
Leave the violets - it is their only source of food.
Quote:
It is because the violet is the food plant for Fritillary butterflies. The adult butterfly takes nectar from milkweed, coneflowers, thistles and many other things, but the eggs of Fritillaries are laid on violets and the larvae feed on the leaves. The eggs are laid at the end of summer; the tiny larvae hatch out and spend the winter under the leaf litter and begin to feed in spring when the violet leaves come back. The larvae are very hairy, spiny, black or dark brown caterpillars, some with orange stripes at the base of the spines. The caterpillars feed only at night on the lower side of the leaves and hide during the day on the ground so they are not often seen, therefore, if something is chewing on your violets, it might not be bad slugs but good Fritillary caterpillars!
I don't have regrets with a plant per se, but I do have regrets about where I placed them. When I don't like where I planted them at, I usually transplant them and there's a 99% success rate on my part (surprisingly so). But I'm scared that this may not be the case with every plant...
I have a nice, energetic Mulberry tree growing, but I placed it too close my neighbour's house and also close to the place where we hang our clothes (the trees can be a mess). The thing is, I always got cold feet every time when I had the urge to transplant it. It ultimately got bigger and bigger (now it's almost 2m), so I ditched the 'project'. I just couldn't risk it and I couldn't afford losing it as it was one of my successful cuttings (out of like 5) which I planted 2 years ago.
P.S. Maybe this counts, but my mother planted a grapevine nearly a decade ago in our yard and it's annoying vigorous and it gets everywhere. And on top of that, it never produces grapes. We still don't understand why.
oh no - I love crepe myrtles! They bloom for so long/have so many colors and some of mine almost have a willow-y weepy appearance to them. If the branches fall off the bigger ones (South Carolina winter ice storms) , the wood is beautiful and I use them in a variety of settings. Mostly propped against a wall just now but great plans for them .
I inherited a yard with several crepe myrtles. We decided to remove them and lo and behold we have suckers coming up all the time. Roundup kills only the top foliage, then come back.
Mint, oregano and lemon balm were a bit of a problem, but the only plant I truly regretted putting down was a variety of fern that was included in a container planter that had become overgrown.
My old house had a nice shady spot that I thought would be a good place to plant the fern, and boy did it like that spot! Unfortunately, that one little fern quickly multiplied and spread everywhere, and by the time I was tired of seeing so much of it, I discovered how difficult it was to totally remove. The fronds and bulbs were thickly packed and spread out... and every time I thought I had succeeded in finding them all, before long there would be new ones coming up. Never again! :-)
Omg, where do I start? We have lived in this house for 38 years. We have acreage in the PNW where most temperate perennials thrive.
First mistake was planting some yellow flag iris in a drainage ditch. It has to be hacked out as the rhizomes are thick and woodsy. It spreads by these rhizomes and small hard hockey puck seeds. Grrrrr, my fault cause they were free and looked so pretty.
The next two were gifts from gardeners who should have known better. Latium or Yellow Archangel and Arum Italicum. The first one is a vicious spreader. It is in our forest, creeping into neighbors yard where I dumped it and in a perennial bed where it hitch hiked with a rhody that it eventually killed. The arum spreads by bulblets and seeds. It is a pretty plant but it shows up everywhere and if you don’t get the bulb and bulblets, you get an infestation.
A problem that is almost out of control is aspen. We thought it was beautiful in Utah long ago and it does grow here. At first, it didn’t sprout saplings but now it is going gung ho under the power lines. And, it dies not color up here as we don’t have early cold fall weather.
My grandmother gave me some bamboo and it is creeping into the creek. We need a back hoe to eliminate it.
Another big mistake was red and yellow twig dogwood although they are sold as natives. You cannot kill them. I just let one big one take over by a pond. The other I have to prune the suckers every spring.
Another one is lady’s mantle. It self sows everywhere but I have learned to cut back sprays before they get a chance to sally forth to reproduce. Ditto, the columbine.
One that self sows that I do enjoy and don’t mind is an English primrose which is blooming now.
I am thinking of contacting our Noxious Weed Board for suggestions.
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