Are there plants that you just can't grow or always kill?

15 years ago

There are some plants which for some reason I have never been able to grow:

Roses (Every Rose I have ever planted has died except those wild weedy ones)

Poppies (They always waste away and die)

Viburnum (I have tried twice and both died during the winter)

I have had great success with trilliums though. :) Do you guys have similar problems with other plants in the Ohio Valley?

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Comments (12)

mrgpag SW OH Z5/6
15 years ago
Chamaecyparis obtusa - any cultivar. They either succumb after a year or two or most of the foliage turns brown and looks like crap. I quit trying this year after too many loses.
livingfossil
Original Author
15 years ago
I have killed one of those too mrgpag. My second one, a lot of the top part died off (during the winter), so that next summer, I constructed a little dirt mound on its north side and this past winter it did not brown and is recovering. I have only ever gotten the "Hage" variety. Have you kept them out of those drying winter north winds?
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kydaylilylady
15 years ago
Rhubarb. I don't know what I continually do wrong but it'd died four times now.

Janet
Chemocurl zn5b/6a Indiana
15 years ago
Rhubarb. I don't know what I continually do wrong but it'd died four times now.
A friend of mine also had problems with getting rhubarb to live. He said the little plant would just disappear. I told him the only thing I could think of was that possibly some underground varmit was getting it and pulling it down and away. I'm not sure if he ever succeeded or not.
If I have something die, or not do well, when I get a new one, or the opportunity, I move the existing one. A 'new' spot usually helps a lot.

Sue
kydaylilylady
15 years ago
I start out with nice roots from Indiana Berry Company and they look good for a month or so and then they start going downhill. I had one make it through the winter last year and it looks really spindly. I changed where I planted it thinking there was too much clay underneath it but it doesn't like the new place either. I'm going to try it one more year and if it doesn't take I'm done throwing money down THAT hole!

Janet
timberohio
15 years ago
LOL Great topic.

I couldn't tell you how much money I have spent on roses. I think I would even kill artificial ones.

Oh and African Violets. Lots of money spent on those.
livingfossil
Original Author
15 years ago
Sorry about the African Violets. My friend grows those and he only puts water in their catch plate. Maybe that will help? I always kill orchids or at the very least they have never bloomed for me. They start to bloom and then the flower buds dry out and fall off. lol

Also, I killed a Balsam Fir, but my Caucasian Fir as done great! :)
raee_gw zone 5b-6a Ohio
15 years ago
I can't seem to keep gaura going more than one season. I've tried & failed multiple times with lupines, burgundy gaillardia, tradescantia, verbascum.People tell me that foxglove will self seed & come back, but not for me so far. Finally got the scabiosa & moonbeam coreopsis to take. With roses I'm batting about .500--but it's always the ones that I most want that die. However--plants that I didn't know could be garden thugs ALWAYS do well for me...
livingfossil
Original Author
15 years ago
Lupines haven't done well for me either. Either the heat or rabbits (or some other critter) is eating them. I have some Lupines in a little cage with sun and shade and they do a lot better. They actually came back. My Gaura came back and it was my first time trying those. My Gaura is in a rather hot and dry spot.
diggerb2
15 years ago
tradascantia (is that hhow you spell it?) fine strappy leaves, small clusters of blue 3 petaled flowers. spiderwort? and lately virginia bluebells. yes i cann't grow what some people call weeds.

diggerb
cincy_city_garden
15 years ago
Cactii...I think I'm too attentive. :)

Roses, I can grow those.

Eric
palustris81
15 years ago
I am embarassed to say it but I routinely lose Shasta daisies (Leucanthemum sp) even though I don't have trouble with many other perennials. However, one little clump I threw under a lilac and mugho pine that is being overcrowded by feverfew seems to be prospering.

Are there plants that you just can't grow or always kill?

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mrgpag SW OH Z5/6

livingfossil
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Are there plants that you just can't grow or always kill?

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