Welcome to The Tranquil Garden

I hope you will enjoy the journey I'm starting today. I welcome all your comments and questions on my blog posts and hope you will find my observations about my garden interesting and possibly helpful. I am not an expert (far from it!), so this will be a learning experience all round. I'm planning to do research when questions come up that I can't answer. Frankly, the only reason I feel qualified to write a blog is because anyone can do it! The reason I chose to blog about gardening is because I love it, and I think it's therapeutic to get one's hands (or gardening gloves) dirty by planting things that with luck, educated guesses and a bit of sun and rain, will grow!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Beauties that Wear out their Welcome

I mentioned in my first post that I yanked out a bed of perennial geraniums that was obnoxiously elbowing out its neighbours. The sad aspect of this story is that these geraniums are lovely, prolific bloomers that come in several colours (pink, purple, blue and white, etc)and can really fill out an empty space quickly. Therefore, it's tempting to accept a donation of such a plant (easily obtained for free, not surprisingly) from one's mother-in-law or friend. Accept such presents under advisement! They can be wonderful, but plant them in an area where they have room to grow and won't inhibit the growth of others. Here is a short list of other plants with whom I've had a love/hate relationship.

Chinese Lantern: More of a hate-hate relationship; bought it on a whim, planted it in an isolated spot and watched while it popped up twenty feet away across the driveway. To be avoided!
Bachelor's Buttons: A nondescript plant, whose leaves grow up from the ground almost like an iris, produces vibrant, blue three-to-four inch flowers with lacy edges. Very prolific, sprouts up everywhere, but actually fairly easy to keep under control and a repeat bloomer if you dead-head it regularly.
Oregano: A wonderful herb that flowers abundantly in sunlight and spreads like wild fire. I'm intending to cut it back, but I keep seeing the bees landing on it so have hesitated for their sake. Probably best grown in pots.
Black-eyed Susans: Lovely plant, but very vigorous. Dig out and give away the excess and enjoy its long-lived blooms
Echinacea: Same advice as the Susans. Comes in a few nice colours, the most common being pink.
Goutweed: Was afflicted with this plant in my previous garden and eventually had to dig it out completely and for all I know it has come back to haunt the present owners of the property. It's an awful creeper but I suppose has its uses if you just want to fill up a space with something other than grass. It has variegated (green and white) leaves and small white flowers that grow in bunches on a tall stalk. Quite pretty (she said, grudgingly...). To be avoided at all costs, in my humble opinion (IMHO).
That's it for now. I was going to add links to a couple of sites about geraniums etc., but I can't figure out how. I'll try to get that sorted out.

P.S. My sister tells me I should keep watering the Hawthorn for awhile because it might not be completely dead, so I'm going to do that and see what happens.

3 comments:

  1. Hopefully I'll have a garden within the next couple of years... I'll follow your tips!!! Thanks in advance!!!

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  2. Viv,
    It sounds lke a good way to get work done in the beds of flowers --just be there - think of other problems and your hands pull weeds.
    Ali-Baba.

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  3. Argggh! Goutweed!! The bane of my garden existence at my last two houses. I am sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, to the person who put it in, but soooo difficult to get rid of. Like the party guest who takes over all the conversations and who won't go home!
    Love the blog Viv and how your garden grows :-)
    Txo

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