Your Best and Worst Plants for 2008

15 years ago

I am a newbie here at GW. I would like to know what are your worst and best plants for 2008. Worst will be the "never again" types and best are the easy, gorgeous and prolific veggies, annuals, and perennials you have grown this year.

My best plants are yard long beans, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, Mr. Smiley tomatoes, a heirloom yellow cherry tomato, cherry roma tomatoes, baby bok choy, banana peppers, purple and Thai basil, heirloom cannas, gardenia and brugmansia.

My worst are rosemary, lavender, round radish, variegated brugmansia, yarrow and snapdragons. The rosemary and lavender are dead-o, the round radish have lots of leaves, no radish!, and somehow yarrows and snapdragons do not even germinate!

I know I am doing something wrong that is why the ones on my worst list are not thriving. Suggestions welcomed and appreciated.

Thank you.

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Comments (6)

aseedisapromise
15 years ago
Hi there,

I hate to see an unanswered post! I'm sure that everyone has plants they love and ones they love to hate, but maybe this is a place too far away from the beaten path for a lot of people to find. Maybe you would have better luck with it in a different forum, like one on herbs or vegetables.

I am in a very different zone, but I have good luck with snapdragons, which reseed in my beds if I'm not careful. Sometimes they even winter over under some leaf mulch. Maybe it is too hot there? I don't really know.

I grow Kentucky Blue pole beans, and they are quite nice, but so are Kentucky Wonders. We had a cool summer, so it was a great broccoli year here. I grew three kinds, and they were all great. I tried Opalka tomatoes this year, and they were not fast, but bountiful and I'll grow them again.

Rosemary and lavender are two of my favorites! I have to grow my rosemary in a pot and bring it in every winter, but it seems to manage and I love having it. I have two kinds of lavender, both the sturdy hardy kinds, Grosso and Hidecote. It's a little dicey in my heavy-ish soil, but they manage.

I look at the Brugs in the catalogs and think they are great, but they're not for me here! So you get to enjoy things that I don't!

As far as germinating seeds, read and follow the directions on seed packages, and most of the time things work out. Try to grow things at the best time for the plant, like when it is cool for radishes and snapdragons. What kind of yarrow were you trying to grow? I have two kinds, but I've never tried to grow them from seed. The Moonshine yarrow has reseeded in my garden, but not too often. The Summer Pastels never has, but there is plenty to divide. My book on germinating seed says that yarrow needs light to germinate, can be sown inside at 70 degrees or outside. Sounds like the tiny seeds need to be kept moist and warm on top of the soil. Keep trying!
Chemocurl zn5b/6a Indiana
15 years ago
Hi Dee,

I've been pondering your question ever since you posted. Once I get caught up a lot, and all my bulbs planted, I will have more time to reply.

Sue
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bigred
15 years ago
WORST....alway and forever will be that blasted chameleon plant I planted back 18 yrs or so ago as a newbee gardener....followed closely by a plant that looks like a mini variegated bamboo. I have the name writen down somewhere. It runs in a straight line and I'm forever trying to pull it up. Then there's the wild white yarrow that I pull up by the bucketsfull each year.

My favorite plants: irises,daylilies(love Eye of Newt,Night Embers and Renegade Lady),big honker leafed hostas,japense painted ferns....anything w/ gold,variegated or purple/black foliage.

Peggy
Chemocurl zn5b/6a Indiana
15 years ago
I'm still pondering but gotta add here...my small start of chameleon plant died. I put it in a shady bed, next to the house and knew it would not thrive there. My doggies, and lack of water killed it off I see...sigh.

Sue...who will likely get another one at the local GW plant swap in a few months.
bigred
15 years ago
Sue,
if you get another one...put it in a pot. Do not put it in the ground...it WILL EAT YOUR YARD. I need to borrow your pups.
Frances Coffill
15 years ago
this is my first visit to this side of GW and I don't know what a chameleon plant is....

My best plant in 2008 would have to be red trumpet honeysuckle. No scent but an absolute showstopper and hummingbird magnet... (also flowered on and off all winter in Zone 7B) 2nd best SHrub rose Julia Child (got this as a gift) grew and prospered in spite of my cluelessness about roses. (fab flowers and fragrance too) 3rd Pierris Japonica 'Valley Valentine' Laughs in the face of drought, ignores insects and has pretty pink flowers to boot!

No real horrors, except maybe the dwarf gardenia. I have a feeling that the time will come when I regret the variagated vinca and creeping jenny that escaped from my hanging baskets, but only time will tell.

Frances

Your Best and Worst Plants for 2008

Comments (6)

aseedisapromise

Chemocurl zn5b/6a Indiana

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bigred

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