When I first started gardening in earnest, years ago, it was so delightful to have plants take to their new quarters and spread with abandon. Money was tight and moving successively into three homes with minimal landscaping left a lot of garden and foundation planting space to fill. Plants were donated by friends, purchased at garden club plant sales, at end of season sales at garden centers and started from seed.
The first gardens at my present location were started 29 years ago. Just as I have grown older, and I hate to say it but broader, so have my gardens. That 6-inch Gentsch white hemlock in the White Garden is now close to 15 feet; same with the Rose of Sharon seedling from my sister’s garden. Annemarie’s one red-leaved canna now forms a perimeter around the porch and Flora’s Tatarian aster is now duking it out with the hibiscus. What’s a gardener to do?
Gentsch white hemlock. Photo by dmp, UConn
There are two ways to look at this situation and each probably has equal merit. Let the plants have their ways and the fittest will survive. If anything, larger or more robust plants will crowd out underperformers and surely form a dense enough patch to keep most weeds at bay.
On the other hand, there is something to be said for “A place for everything, everything in its place”, Ben Franklin (1706-1790). Depending on the plants and the particular situation, some have to go, others be reduced in volume, and some can just be appreciated for their expansive nature.
It is good to be tolerant of many things but even tolerance has its limits when a particular plants tries to usurp land from its neighbors. These overachievers need to be monitored and banned from certain garden situations, including a few in my yard.
There are several plants in particular that I’ve been waging war on over the years. The first is a magenta spiderwort (Tradescantia). There are two very well behaved spiderworts in my gardens, one white and one light purple. They are relatively upright clump formers. The purple one even reblooms. So at our garden club’s plant sale, I picked up a magenta one thinking it could be a companion to the evening primroses with their ruby tipped foliage and sunny yellow flowers. Then, the magenta spiderwort started popping up all over the place – in with the purple spiderwort, amongst the epimediums, and into the sedums. The stalks are a brighter green than the purple spiderwort so several times a year I have gone through this bed trying to weed out the magenta plants but it is almost impossible to get out the whole rootstock and I’ve come to the conclusion that the whole bed just needs to be dug up and replanted.
Purple spiderwort with a magenta stem poking through the hosta. Photo by dmp, UConn.
Another plant I brought home from our plant sale a few years ago was a doronicum, commonly called Leopard’s Bane. I thought the early, bright, lemon yellow, daisy-like flowers would liven up my woodland garden. The person who brought it assured me that it did not spread that rapidly and it was easy to pluck out any unwanted divisions. I had even checked in a few books and on a couple of websites, and the ruling was this plant was non-invasive. I beg to disagree. While not positive, I believe it is D. caucasium, with its heart-shaped leaves, rhizomes and 18-inch tall flower stems. One single plant has now taken over at least 400 square feet and I never know until the next spring where more plants will pop up. Since there are established azaleas in this bed, I just keep weeding these out. Perhaps a different species or cultivar would give me cheery yellow spring color without taking over the neighborhood.
Leopard’s bane or doronicum spreading through the woodland garden. Photo by dmp, UConn.
An herbalist friend thought that a butterbur (Petasites) would be a striking plant next to the small pond in the corner of our property. The large, silvery-green rhubarb-sized leaves definitely are eye-catching. The unique early season flower stalks are curiously but delightfully covered with buds that look like button mushrooms. My friend said this plant was used to treat headaches but with its spreading tendencies, it is giving me one. Like all plants, it is expanding logarithmetically and I’ve been pulling up the new starts as they begin wandering off their allotted acreage.
Butterbur leaves. Photo by dmp, UConn.
In the white garden, I designated a sizable piece of property, around 6 by 6 feet to a white snakeroot or bugbane (Cimicifuga). It has pest-free (as you might guess from the name), attractive, compound leaves and stems, and spires of bottlebrush, creamy white flowers that mature to creamy white, poisonous berries. This plant is native and attracts quite a few pollinators when in bloom even though the flowers are not the most pleasant smelling to us humans. Supposedly, a clump former, it too is migrating into the sweet Cicely and the goat’s-beard and has to be constantly kept in check.
White snakeroot with white berries. Photo by dmp, UConn.
Other plants I am constantly trying to contain include lily of the valley, a red-leaved, yellow flowering lysimachia and a white meadow anemone to mention a few. I guess I should be coming up with some garden renovation plans for next spring and also, more carefully researching future plant purchases.
Happy Gardening!
Dawn
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