When I first moved here I had a memory of a shrub that grew in my grandmother's yard - Virginia Sweetspire. I looked it up and then drove 2 hours to a nursery that carried it. Get it planted out and it's looking good.

The next morning I go out on my morning "scout" and all of my sweetspires have disappeared. I am (as my students would say) TRIPPING!

There is nothing- not even a broken branch left. No evidence that they even existed.

The next morning my bird suet was missing. Several days later, I'm on the net looking at who's scat is that.com (really, it exists). The severe clawing on a nearby tree sealed the verdict.

Apparently I have a bear who visits in early spring and sweetspire is the equivalent of bear candy (or as my students would say bear crack.) The highway department even plants it to attract bears to special crossings!

I would love it but....

When DH and I got married and were living in our first house, we took freebies from anyone. We had a dear friend who gaves us many wonderful plants but one unnamed one turned out to be chameleon plant. Have you grown it? You'll appreciate this if you have.

We laid a brick patio(so proud of our young selves) and brought in some great dirt to plant beds on two sides of it. Even though this dirt was a blend that you are supposed to mix in to our NC clay to help balance it out, we just piled it up in raised beds and planted away. Needless to say, the chameleon plant got way out of hand really quick in this manure and sharp sand mix. We pulled out a bunch and then DH......wait for it......tilled before we planted some other things. Little bits of that stinkin' plant now evenly dispersed through everything. Yikes...what a nightmare! We moved! Wasn't there a thread by a poster looking for groundcovers for full sun...they should check this out! HAHA!

Mere

It's a mistake to garden with your Jack Russell.

10 years ago, when we moved to PA, I had my first real opportunity for my own garden. I brought in yards of cow manure and topsoil. There was a retail nursery a few miles away that sold wonderful plants for wholesale prices.

There was one fly in this ointment. My dog.

At this time the dog could not be left alone (long story), so usually she was out in the yard with me. Shrieking and hanging onto the shovel with her jaws while I dug holes, ripping up stuff that I'd just planted if I didn't watch her, turning somersaults to catch weeds as I pulled them and threw them over my shoulder. One of her favorite pastimes was to eat the pansy flowers. Walk straight down the flower beds when I wasn't looking, eating all of the flowers. Then she'd wag her tail when I turned back. I have heard pansies/ violets are good in beverages and decorative in ice cubes but I guess they're good straight off the plant too.

I know my dog just sounds spoiled but if you think that then you don't know Jack Russells. Their enthusiasm and energy levels are OVERWHELMING -- and I walked the dog and/or played fetch with her every day. They'd rather DIE than not be able to do what they have their minds set on. It's just the way they are.

She did the same thing when we moved down here. The neighbor on his tractor would actually pull up and watch Molly's antics while I weeded. Her somersaults were impressive -- and seemingly endless.

Now she is 19 1/2 years ago and has trouble getting around, so now I have some peace.

Here she is, the bane of my gardening existance:

Fun stories (never as much fun at the time, right)
Alicia, I can relate to the Jack Russell story. I have a 4 year old who likes to "help" in the garden (and has done for 2 yrs).
I have made tons of goofs, but none that make a good story.
My biggest goof was in not understanding about tree root competition. I can't tell how many plants I killed through my ignorance. Basically I thought it was all about how shady it was and gave no consideration to root competition, which was the true demise of my plants. I still lose plants to root competition, but at least now I know why :-)

Ais, I had been trying to think of a story that was funny too. DH (he's off today) suggested Molly. You're right, dealing with her wasn't always fun at the time. Would have made a funnier movie than a post on the internet. It's unbelievable that something is just 7 or 9" can wreck so much havoc. She's 19 1/2 years old , not ago. :) I do look at the preview but always post mistakes just the same.

DH has a patient who always asks "Is that dog still alive?" I said she (the patient) must be more and more amazed every time she comes in.

My garden faux pas was to actually read the seed package and believe what it said. A couple of years ago, after hearing someone I trust explain that during colonial times VA and NC were the epicenter of Artichoke farming (before CA was "discovered") I decided to try and grow some. Now at the time I had never even eaten a fresh artichokes, only the pickled ones in health food pizza and dip.

So I see a packet of seeds in the rack at Logan's and reach for it. While in line at the register I notice a small extra sticker stuck to the side of the packet that explains that this crop of seed was given a germination test (who does this service??). It read that a 66% germination rate could be expected. Now, in my mind I do the math that factors in that my success rate with seeds is much more extreme so when I get home I plant all 200 seeds. Every stinkin one of them germinated! I had baby artichokes out the whazoo! I was giving them away, selling them at the flea market, bringing them to swaps... you name it, I was the equivalent of Johnny Appleseed except it was globe artichokes and everyone I cornered said the same thing... "Can you even grow them here??"

That was many years ago and this last summer's heat wave finally did in the last of that original row in the garden. But have no fear, I bought another packet of seeds the other day... this time I think I'll only sow a few.

I was trying to pull up the dead peony stems from the ground, but boy were they stuck in there good...so i pulled and pulled, but sadly I pulled the whole sucker out of the ground...root and all. Sigh!

My first Siberian husky had definite ideas about gardening. Grass she apparently hated since she changed the once grassy back yard to a moonscape. Mulch she approved of, so much so that we could leave it in piles one day and the next day she would have taken down all the piles and spread them as well as we could have. I guess she loved roses; she ate them to the ground. She definitely hated the butterfly bush I moved from the front yard to the back yard, or perhaps I just planted it in the wrong spot, because she ripped it out of the ground and left it to die. As I failed to check on it for a week and it was out of site from the back door, it was quite dead when I finally noticed her work. She didn't bother mature trees, but she somehow thinned out all the new growth in the wooded parts of the back yard until the density suited her. She was one funny dog.

Way back when, veggie gardening was much lower on my list than it is now. Innocent that I was, I believed that I could moush plants close together to best utilize my little plot. I was so proud of my first big fat green sweet bell pepper until I tasted it. Can you imagine what a giant jalapeño pepper tastes like when it has gone bad, nicely chopped up in a big mixed green salad? Yuck. Seems sweet and hot peppers shouldn't be grown close together because those busy little bees cross pollinate them. Now I grow peppers with my neighbor - she grows the hot ones, I grow the sweet. We're hoping that 10 acres apart is enough, what do you think?

Nancy the nancedar

Funny, funny funny! Keep them coming! I giggle so loud while I'm reading these my husband always asks "What's so funny?"

This isn't as funny as it is cute, in my opinion.

We have a wonderful Australian Shepherd mix, his name is Teddy and even though we live in the country he is a house dog. When we go outside he comes but we can almost 99% of the time trust him to stay in our yard as he loves to be as close to me as possible. 4 years ago when we started gardening our 1/2 acre veggie garden we discovered Teddy loves to garden too. He would dig and stay with us with each seed we planted. He sits and watches Don till, follows the tractor the whole bit.

Last summer I planted two big patches of a new butternut variety. Just about the time they were really big plants and producing squash (they were also mulched heavy with straw) I was busy weeding at the other end of the garden.

After a while I realized Ted was not right by my side like he usually is, I walked around the house, calling him, no sign of him and he didn't come running. I looked for a good 5 minutes calling him, my first thought was he was dognapped cause he is beautiful!
I decided to walk to the back of the garden to see if he went into the woods that border our garden and maybe got hurt. To get there I cut through the butternut squash patch and practically tripped over a sleeping Teddy. I kid you not , there he is with his chin resting on a butternut snoozing away.
I never have a camera when I need one. I actually had to say his name to wake him up he was sleeping so soundly. I wish I knew what he may have been dreaming about. The plants were so big I couldnt see him there and he weighs 65bs.

Susan in NC

This is sort of a garden story. DH was out strolling in the garden with Molly the Jack Russell 8 or 9 years ago, when splash, 2 Canada geese land in the ditch next what is now the old house site. Oh boy. Before DH can do anything, Molly leaps into the water and grabs onto the tail of one of the geese. She's waterskiing, down the ditch and then up into the grass driveway, with DH yelling at her to let go. Dog and goose did go through one of the garden beds but didn't seriously damage anything. Normally a goose will not hesitate to smack down a small dog, but Molly was hanging onto its tail and it probably thought it was being attacked by a small demon. Finally some tail feathers give and the geese fly away. DH was hoarse for a week.

I don't know how many of you have read this thread, but it's funny: My Stupidest Garden Mistake. My favorites are the turnip story and the person who rototilled her chocolate mint in an attempt to get rid of it.

those were very funny! i agree the turnip story was the funniest, but there were some close seconds. goodness knows, i've lost tons of things by laying them down and whacked my head more times than i like to think about stepping on a hard rake. and i've babied seedlings only to find out they were weeds. where on earth did you find that thread, anyhow?

funniest thing i can think of off the top was this spring when i covered everything in our yard to try and save stuff from the easter freeze. i had practically every sheet, towel, blanket, et al in the house outside. john was not kidding when he said it looked like a laundromat exploded. sad thing was, it didn't help much. well, except to give us a reputation as the REALLY weird neighbors.

I found that thread a couple of years ago when I was searching for something else.

Tammy that is funny about the exploded laundry -- I tried covering everything a few years ago when temps dropped to 20 after many warm days had lured many things out to bloom, with indifferent results -- might have helped the Baptisia alba but the tips of the flowers were blackened, making them look like roasted marshmallows...

alicia, glad i'm not the only crazy one. i regret that i didn't get any pictures. it truly was wretched looking. roasted marshmallows- an interesting look....

i know i've done more funny aka stupid things- i guess i've temporarily blocked them. i'll have to ask pete. HE never forgets my dumber moments. that's what spouses are for, eh? :)

I know many people have done this so I don't mind sharing.

You buy something expensive for the garden. It disappears. You think it is dead so you clean that portion of the flowerbed up and completely forget about the cherished plant. A year goes by and you discover it happily living on the edge of your compost pile! The best is when you spend tons of money and time on a plant that struggles. In frustration you toss it into the woods or onto the compost heap. Years later you discover it doing much better without all your "help".

I think I will start directing my underperformers to the edge of the compost pile right away. Seems to be the best way to succeed with some of my choices.

I'm sure there's a lot of things that have happened to me when I was working in the garden that looked funny, but were not fun to experience -- yelping as I stuck my hand into yet another paper wasp nest, running like a madwoman from yellow jackets-- Sometimes I am glad there is no one else around.

My first experience growing roses from seed is kind of funny. I got some hips of Nasturana, and got 3 seedlings from them. Two were midgets, and the third looked and acted just like multiflora. They were such duds. I have had better luck since then.

know what you mean alicia. this spring i was walking backwards with something in my hands (no idea why now but it made sense at the time) and somehow managed to fall backwards onto my upside down wheelbarrow and ended up getting really caught in the stupid metal legs/mess trying to catch myself from falling- which didn't work. i had some nasty cuts/bruises from that- and in oddball places, too. not at all funny to experience, but i'm sure had anyone seen me, they'd have been laughing. i'm a major clutz anyhow, but that was one of my primo moments.

My divorce and the beginning of my mother's final illness came at the same time frame. I moved into my mother's house to care for her. Had to get a court order, but finally was able to dig up all my roses from my former "marital residence". Potted them up and homed the lot of them on a big black parking pad at my mother's house. I worked full time, so managing Mom, job, nurses, etc. I didn't do much gardening. Weekend was my time in my "rose garden on the parking pad". Mom lived in a tiny college town associated with a very conservative church. Her next door neighbor was both mayor and pastor of one of the churches.

The neighbors, unfortuantely, had full view of our backyard from their parking area. Often spoke to me about my roses. No privacy in this little neighborhood.

I'm outside bright and early tending my roses - definitely not dressed for church. I heard this noise like a helicopter (honest) and looked up to see a giagantic beetle on direct course for me. I instictively ducked and the danged thing landed on my back and begin to walk up my shirt toward my head. I could feel its nasty little claw feet through my shirt. I did what any self-respecting female would do - I shed my shirt (button up front shirt).

When the shirt hit the ground, two things happened - I saw the beetle and got curious and I heard a noise. The noise - the neighbor family were in the process of getting in their car to go to church. The teeneaged boy was the source of the noise - I guess partially disrobed females were not common in his experience. I promptly fled into the house. Spent some time figuring out how to tell my Mom since some busybody was sure to call her and tell her I was naked in the backyard.

The beetle was a giant stag beetle. It liked my shirt. When I redressed and went outside again it was still hanging out on my discarded shirt. I captured it and identified it - showed it to Mom - who used to collect insects - partial justification for my backyard antics.

Jody that is funny! There's nothing like witnesses. :)

I can't think of any funny mistakes I've made...profoundly stupid ones for sure. Frustrating, maddening, annoying ones, yep. Just not funny. Most are of the "why didn't I check to see how much light that needed" or "who knew it was going to be 9 feet tall" variety. Irritating and lethal to plants (and the plant budget) but not amusing.

My dh is the one who does the laughable things. When we first met I had lots of electric garden tools: lawn mower, weed whacker, clippers, etc. - because I can start that kind. I think he cut, clipped, or mowed each and every cord at one time or another. Come to think of it, that's not really funny either because now we have the gas powered tools that I cannot start!

He couldn't rest until he had a riding lawn mower (to mow the lawn I had previously cut with my handy little electric). But one day he was mowing the front yard and, for some unknown reason, was looking back over his shoulder rather than in the direction he was going. He mowed down the neighbor's newly planted dogwood tree that was near the edge of our yard. Dh felt terrible about it and we rushed off to the garden center to buy a replacement. It was the wrong time of year and we had to search and then pay a high price for one of similar size to the one dh destroyed. But right is right and we bought it, brought it home and planted it where the other one had been. When the neighbor came home from work dh 'fessed up and explained what had happened. The neighbor said, "Too bad. That was a gift from my inlaws and I had to plant it but I really didn't like it anyway."

There was the time dh was tilling up our brand new garden with his brand new (to him) oversize tiller. He dropped his keys out there somewhere - including the special one for his truck that can't be copied except by the manufacturer. It took two days with a metal detector to find where they were buried.

The "soil" here is pure sand. It's easy to dig but hard to keep a hole from collapsing in on itself long enough to stick a plant in. Last spring dh decided to plant corn in our garden. The corn grew fairly well but when it was about 5 feet tall we had a thunderstorm...with wind. It blew every stalk over - flattened them right out. Dh checked and found that they were not broken but pushed over root and all. Working as fast as possible, he spent a whole morning putting each cornstalk back in the sandy ground. Around lunch time he went to the house to cool off and have a bite to eat. He was pouring himself a cup of coffee when he looked out the kitchen window and noticed that the wind was blowing and all the corn was flat again. I don't think he will ever try growing corn here again.

Lindakimy, your poor DH! -- lol.