Malvena, I use round up in the middle of my perennial border, for stubborn weeds. There are many ways to be sure you don't get it on plants you don't want to kill, one is to mask them with a sheet of cardboard, and another is known as "the hand of death". You put a rubber glove on your hand, then a cotton glove and saturate with round up and "shake hands" with the weed you want to kill. If Round Up won't kill the grass, you are not mixing it to the proper strength. Linda C

My worst gardening mistake was when I was just starting, and had inherited an old, mature garden. The mistake was to get a lot of books on roses, and read them, and believe what they said! It took me a while to learn that only LOCAL advice re the size, habit, health, & pruning needs of roses was of any use (most of the books I got were written in England or the US East Coast - both equally useless as to facts about how roses grow here, but gorgeous pictures, etc.). The books were so authoritative, and stated things as facts, period, without any qualifications (except for Graham Thomas, bless him, who always said that this is what this rose does where I garden, but I have heard that it behaves differently elsewhere...) that I was intimidated into believing them. Only after years of having some of my ancient roses identified by wonderful people on this forum did I realize that they were not freaks of nature, but behaved exactly as you would expect such a rose to behave in our climate... Knowing how ignorant I was, and wanting so much to take good care of the garden I had inherited, I also unfortunately took the advice of the ARS and others about the need for spraying constantly, but only for one or two years - it was just too silly, and too much work, and I gave up. Then all of the bees and butterflies, etc came back, and the roses were still happy. So, the main lesson turned out to be to trust your own eyes about what is going on in your garden, what grows & doesn't grow, and what you like & don't like, and don't take any advice unless it is LOCAL! Jackie

I have done some of the same, planted tall purple ruellia and vinca, the vinca died this year YEAH, LOL and they say you can't kill that stuff........I can and did don't know how but so far it's gone and I hope for good. Now watch it come back grrrrrrrr. I've planted things to close together, to far apart and have to find something to fill in the blank spot. I was outside this morning and was trying to trim off the bad leaves on my clematis will it was tangled up like your necklace chain and when trying to get it untangled the limb would break grrrrrrrrrrr. I managed to save some of the long limbs and hope it will fill back in next spring. It was a knock out last spring. I moved one clematis in the front yard I know they don't like to be moved but this one wasn't doing a thing in four years so I moved it.

Only because it comes up frequently at this time of year, I wanted to comment about the appropriateness or inappropriateness of using the "last frost date" as a planting guide. Many folks (and a whole lotta websites!) seem to think the average last frost date for their area will determine when any planting can take place. This is an invalid assumption. The average last frost date is typically only an indicator of when it might be safe to plant out cold sensitive plants like annuals or very tender perennials. And a date to count backwards from when starting seeds indoors, so they will be of sufficient size and maturity at a safe planting time. But it has little to no bearing on when one can plant fully zone hardy plants like most trees, shrubs and perennials. These should be able to take frosts easily, although newly emerging foliage may be damaged with a sharp frost but will recover. Generally, the only limitation to when they can be safely planted is the soil condition and if the plant has been hardened off. If the soil is workable and the plant still dormant or if not dormant, adequately acclimated/hardened off, then you can plant any time regardless of when the last frost may be.