No, some things I really don't like. No matter the setting.

Anything with thorns that can scratch me is out of my beds. I get enough scratches, cuts, bumps, bruises without putting in plants that can grab me. They may look nice in someone's gardens but have no place in mine. Perhaps too many years of dealing with thistles on my parents' Midwestern prairie farm.

Petunias that aren't self cleaning. It's a tactile thing.

A few years ago when I noticed that my beds were getting pinkish I starting comparing the same type of plant with different colored blooms and found myself drawn to the pink blooms. I hated pink! Sigh, I am resigned to acknowledging that I am mellowing. Few bright red, screaming magenta, and the palest orange blooms remain.

These I dislike:

1. talk of growing 'flowers' rather than 'plants'. To me this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of gardening, viewing it as a branch of home decoration rather than a dynamic process.

2. plants promoted as 'dwarf' ie another identikit blob with disproportionately sized blossoms.

3. a large number of variegated plants (though not all), especially those grown for flowers and foliage e.g variegated Phlox

4. pink Narcissi

All these dislikes are the product of human intervention. I seriously can't say I hate any plant in its natural form and place. Even Japanese Knotweed, I'm sure is terrific on the side of a volcano in its homeland.

These I don't dislike but don't understand:

1. Hosta collectors

2. Cacti collectors

Ho Flora - we must be planting sisters...although I am (reluctantly) going to give cacti collectors a free pass since my youngest is one and I know of several fabulous conservatory collections.

Yep, I especially hate the unnatural dwarfing process - that campanula Pouffe is the absolute nadir of planting grace and Rouge recently posted about a new thalictrum which had the dubious distinction of being named 'purplicious' as well as being stunted..'

mnswgal - growing wild roses has completely inured me to scabby arms and bleeding on the job (fertiliser!). Although I have (so far) avoided 'bingo wings' (look it up - one of those scabrous Brit expressions), my poor arms are now no longer fit for view - permanent long sleeves for me. Afraid to say that this year is looking like another orange overload.(geums and tiger lilies), only emphasised by 'screaming' magenta (far too many Red Admiral, Orkney Dragon geraniums, callirhoe and gladioli papillio 'Ruby') Sunglasses at the ready.

flora's 2nd on the list is exactly the type of thing I mean by any plant "just screams hybrid". I've gotten to the point of really being bothered by those sissy lantana's that have been emasculated into small well behaved bedding plants. Man-made plants.

Aw, come on guys, plants with stickers? Oh no, not cactus!!! In the hotter, dryer parts of the world there's nothing like a few big ole prickly pear cactus's, yucca's or some agave's to add sculpture to a dry garden. Some people can't seem to look at cactus without constantly saying cactus scare them but I've grown roses in the past and they are 100 times worse than any cactus --- I've had to wear the long sleeves too and still have the yearly battle with the one planted in the neighbor's yard next to the fence. I always get scarred & maimed.

This dislike seems more like a strictly a location dislike thing--wrong plant in the wrong place. I don't like seeing tropical plants planted out here because they look jarringly out of place, contrived and artificial. Ridiculous is the word that always comes to my mind. But then, I can't imagine cactus in other climates either for the same reason. Lots of native plants that look stunning and visually at home out here have stickers or thorns and the further west you go, the more vicious plants become, its even hard to find a plant that doesn't have some form of weapon on it. Its a natural survival mechanism but, I can definitely understand not wanting to work in the garden around them. I have to carry tweezers around with me in the garden at all times, that does get old sometimes but I think its worth it.

"But then, I can't imagine cactus in other climates either for the same reason."

It's complicated though, because there are Opuntia, at least, that are native to states that can otherwise look most un-desert-like, like New Jersey.

To me gardens always look somewhat artificial so rather than worry along these lines (desert plants next to tropical ones) I just assume a harmonious combination can somehow be created if the designer is skilled enough, or it cannot. (OTOH in most ornamental gardens the dry climate plants have to be given their own bed anyhow, because they need a different soil mix. It tends to be places with sandy soil like Virginia Beach that you can see Musa basjoo right next to an Agave, looking "wrong") This reaches the height of "absurdity" (though I think it's a wonderful absurdity) in the gardens around the Italian Lakes, where the climate allows combinations that would look bizarre to a horticulturalist but perfectly normal to everyone else - huge perfectly grown Australian Anigozanthos, permanently planted in-ground, right next to alpine wildflowers like Paeonia tenuifolia.

Disagreeable bunch aren't we?

Subjects to avoid in polite company; religion, politics and gardening.

Below: Pink to make (some) gardeners wink.

Sidalcea 'Rosanna' (July 9, 2010).

No, I don't think we are. Disagreeable that is. It is a very human thing, to be critical, analytical and to be able to see and think in the round. When we are admiring plants and each others gardens, we are far more concerned with hurting feelings or being insensitive...and exactly so because we are kind and thoughtful (or we try at least)...but when we allow ourselves to be less accommodating or negative, I think this is where we can exercise judgment, look at what works or not and most importantly, why it doesn't do it for us. Frees us from convention and good manners to be able look beyond a pretty face and a favourite colour....and going by the myriad comments on this thread, I am excited to see how our thought processes and ideas are emerging and evolving. A hugely fascinating process which interests me a lot.

I don't think it makes us disagreeable, its being honest or just human.

I have to say I love to hate house plants. I never say this when I see them but there is something about plants indoors, especially when people put shiny stuff on the leaves making them look like they've been coated in silicone or theres masses of them all bunched in together taking up huge amounts of floor space indoors. Dusty or dying ones that look like they've been in the same pot for who knows how long are downright depressing. I'm not a collector type so I fall into that category of not getting why anyone would collect masses of plants for indoors. Greenhouses are a whole different deal but even then, I always sail right by the boring house plants and make a point to avoid looking at them on my way to the good normal stuff.

Opinionated, passionate but I think we have a long way to go to be disagreeable. I actually like David's Sidalcea 'Rosanna', though I probably wouldn't grow it; it has great form and in a setting where it fits well.

I would say this exchange definitely meets the standard of being able to disagree without becoming disagreeable!

I like Sidalcea 'Rosanna' too! I have not grown that one but I have S. 'Elsie Hugh', 'Party Girl' and 'Brilliant'. They are well separated from each other and other pinks. See I like pink, I just need space between. LOL!

Of those, peren.all, I have had easiest access and used mostly 'Party Girl'. To me, the cultivar and its name just match.

I've periodically got cultivars like 'Rosanna' and 'Purpetta' from David (Merlin's Hollow). I feel Sidalcea is one of the signature plants I use in installing and maintaining perennial gardens, like the one above.

Thanks Campanula for starting this post, it is extremely refreshing to read all the dislikes and enjoy every one.

Disagreeable? not on your life, frank and open is more how I would describe it.

For me I can't stand potentilla, spirea, or marigolds they remind me of dusty parking lots. Petunias of any kind, just tired of them, and I don't care if they bloom all summer I would rather not have anything.

I am not a fan of trees in rows, maybe this is because every time I planted a row something would happen to one or two right in the middle and my row would look like I was seriously inept as a gardener. So now I plant in clumps of three, although I still have that row of spruce along the drive that looks like the middle has been bushwhacked. But what do you do with a row of 25 ft high spruce with the middle two trees half the size? Can't remove them, can't speed up the growth of the newer planted ones. It screams eyesore every time I look out my window, by the time the new ones catch up my grandkids will have grandkids. Oh well, I will happily pass the problem to them, if they keep the farm.

texasranger, I would reevaluate my stand on thorny plants if I lived in an area where they were a major part of the native landscape. We had some short cactus at the end of our lawn on the farm and having gone barefoot all summer I am well acquainted with tweezers but don't want to carry them around all the time. There are so many other plants that do well in MN that I do not miss them, including roses, as their fragrance trigger my migraines.

campanula, your fertilizer comment had me chuckling. I usually wear long sleeves when working outside to help prevent sunburn, scratches and mosquito bites. As it gets hot & humid here in the summer I do get some odd looks from passerbys. Who cares. Not I.

I have few actual plant dislikes but am indifferent to many plants but am open to changing my opinions. With little shade in my yard I was indifferent about hostas until I was introduced to miniature hostas. They were the perfect choice under the locust tree by my front door.

Across the street there's some guys ripping ivy off the wood trim of a one story brick house where its escaped its boundary attempting to start growing on the roof. If I remember right, the brick is golden colored. They are trimming it into a perfectly straight line right under the trim in order to frame the trim. It appears they are preparing to paint the trim since they are now scraping the ivy roots off of the wood. The whole house is encased in ivy. Next to it is another one story red brick house, not that you'd know its red brick unless you'd lived here as long as me, that is 100% encased in ivy too.

I really don't get why people like this. Since we are on the subject of plants we dislike, I'm adding ivy that is used to cover houses in a solid wall of green rather than serving as a ground cover. The yards don't really have gardens, just some typical shrubs planted close to the house and a lawn. I don't get why people won't spend time making the garden area look nice but will spend endless hours trimming ivy off the house as if they are trimming a beard.

I've seen certain climbing plants make lovely designs on walls which can be quite attractive but this 'house wearing a thick green coat' thing is really atrocious.

I have been lurking here and I have a hard time just thinking of individual dislikes.I see beauty in most gardens and have a hard time singling out plants for dislike. Indifference , maybe. I am bored by things like Ivy but I do like walking through a college campus full of ivy walls and thankful that it is not my headache. In mass, it does add to the stage set ambience quality of those buildings. I do dislike wax leaf ligustrum, even though the smell reminds me of my grandmothers burn pit that was surrounded by them. I dislike gardens that do not look like they belong to their environment and need constant irrigation to exist. I just keep thinking that it is a symptom of being divorced from a sense of waste that surrounds us. A dangerous entitlement that is costing some places a lot. WE, in Texas have lived with water rationing for over 20 years in Austin. Browned grass in August does not disturb me at all. It will green up with the fall rains. There are many plants that will never be in my garden for those reasons., so my palette is a reduced palette. I have a beautiful (to some) narcissi in my grey water outlet that I will be ridding myself of since it just does not look right. The beautiful southern magnolia tree is a good tree in Houston , but here it is an over worked headache and it sticks out like a sore thumb in gardens that still relentlessly water and bring in special soils. St augustine grass makes me roll my eyes. Green golf courses in a drought make me mad.

I dislike plants that invade the wild aggressively. They seem to deceive us with their beauty and make us argue about them.

As for the class issue, The need for the extremely rare makes me derisive. Also, it is so dangerous to the environments that these plants come from. We rape the far environs for those rarities. I see it happening in the deserts to my west so the windows sills in Japan, Korea, Europe, and the world can have their little cacti , agave and such. Rustlers have been steeling ALL the seed of the Agave utahensis eborispina for several years now. It is all the rage in Korea. What is sad is that that plant will ultimately die in its inappropriate environment. Since agave are monocarpic, that plant that just died in the canyon that had its seed stripped, will never reproduce itself. Since it is happening year after year, you get the picture about the chances of continuity for that plant community in Peekaboo canyon. Whole mature stands have been uprooted and smuggled away on the Californian/Nevada border. I think that there is so much available, that we need to question our constant need for the new to sport like spoiled pets in our gardens and homes. It shows a penchant for selfish ignorance of consequences of our choices beyond our yards. I think there is strength in the common and the old that is readably available and then there are our natives. I collect from the huge banks of common natives.

So I guess , I am more a person who dislikes the theories and trends behind the garden and not the individual garden plants.

As far as class of gardener: You have heard about upward mobility, well, I am downward nobility soon to be definite low class gardener that loves her weeds.

" I have a beautiful (to some) narcissi in my grey water outlet that I
will be ridding myself of since it just does not look right."

NB that various Amaryllidaceae including quite a few Narcissus species are native to the Mediterranean. So I wouldn't say that they look out of place in a dry climate. Maybe some of the big blowsy modern hybrids would be out of place not the species or primary hybrids.

Unless its something like Rain Lilies, Mariposa Tulip or that Red fall blooming unknown Texas bulb plant thing you sent me that I am yet to ID (arg!!) to my chagrin, many types of spring bulbs definitely look un-Texas-ish and look out of place in a SW native landscape to my eyes. I'm happy to enjoy them in OPY's (other peoples yards) where they fit in with the decor. On the other hand, the Amaryllis family definitely does have lots of tempting stuff that fits right in visually, like those coveted Agaves you've been planting in the grassy area.

Speaking of bulb cousins that look right, one of my Nolina microcarpa's is finally blooming. It only took about 7 or 8 years. I was sitting outside the other day wondering what in the world that hairy stuff was in the center of the long strappy leaves--its quite hairy currently but its stretching out and getting a bit taller each day like a gigantic dark purple asparagus with hair. I'll have to post a picture. I should call it a Texas Easter Lily or maybe a Cowboy Easter Lily. What do you think? Maybe this will be the year the most mature Desert Spoon puts up a towering bloom, the thing is huge now, you'd think it would have by now. I keep waiting and waiting and waiting......

Ah, the greatest loss, moving away from full sun (although, insanely, I am attempting to manage 3 separate gardens as well as various customers) was my treasured species tulip collection. Most have unpronounceable and certainly unspellable names with far too many KXZYs but thrive in my crappy, sandy scree beds. Most gratifying, like nearly all monocots, they are easy from seed and many have thrilling foliage- undulating, waxy or glossy. My daughter seems fair to carry the flame (she rang me to boast about her new tulipa turkmenistan species the other day - so after this last spring, the trowels will be busily digging out clumps of jewelled (precious, bright and tiny) bulbs transferring them to chilly Norfolk.

I know about waiting...and now I am moving into tree time, patience really will be a virtue.

Mara - I totally sympathise - ignorant plant hunters have, almost single handedly, hounded some plants to the absolute edge of extinction (tecophilea, my beloved sprengeri and our native orchids. Some people, for whom rarity is the ne plus ultra absolutely deserve to be removed themselves, along with their destructive greed. Much as I love to see plants as close encounters in my garden, there is nothing to beat seeing them in situ, in their true habitats, thriving. Western China is calling me - maybe I will manage a trip before senescence sets in - worth saving for.

Mexico botanical trip has my name, and it is not far for me. I shamed a woman while walking in the New Hampshire woods , not far from my cousins house, that had a bucket of 30 ground orchids. I see it as a sickness and told her so. She was one sick woman. she just threw the contents on the ground and ran off. We planted them back in the ground as best as we could.

TR, It FINALLY came to me. Silly me, I must be looking my mind.. Those are School house lilies, AKA Oxblood lilies. Rhodophiala bifida. From Brazil . The Germans brought them to Central Texas and they have been here ever since. One finds them in old neighborhoods and abandoned farmsteads. The houses have rotted into the ground but they are still coming up.

Mara, I don't think thats what it is. I looked up Oxblood Lily. The thing is, I ran across the name online several months back looking through a site of Texas plants and recognized it instantly from the label you'd put on the plants when you sent them. Then I forgot it again. Typical. The name Rhodophiala bifida doesn't sound familiar at all and neither does the foliage description about when it dies back etc. I hope to take a photo this fall to finally put this mystery to rest.

Maybe I'm wrong, tell me what you think. These produce foliage in spring which stays green all summer and then they bloom very late, in fact last year they didn't bloom at all before freezing and winter setting in. The foliage freezes back in winter. The flowers are smallish and in clusters and they produced hundreds of small seeds year before last that I bagged up. Does that sound like Oxblood? Do they have lots of seeds?

Actually the follage on the oxblood lilly is out through the winter here and dies back in spring and pops up after the bloom in September. I guess that was not it. My Nolina microcarpa still hasn't bloomed and they are about 12 years old(from seed). I do have them planted in the an extremely rocky un-ammended spot. But My desert spoon, the Texas Sotol has bloomed three times now. It is in nicer spot with some decomposed granite and compost. Sorry for getting off topic here.

Oh, I think most of us like little OT digressions, especially on a lengthy, rambling thread.

I know I do (as a frequent culprit).

Here's the hairy bloom on the Nolina microcarpa.

closeup. Its so weird.

That's a real conversation piece, weird maybe, but wonderful.

Annette

Very very cool. I saw three Nolina texanas blooming the other day in my garden..

mmm must admit, I am not fainting from beauty overload but i would grow a wierdling myself...

Sigh Tex, if you'd only take pictures ;) No, it doesn't sound like Rhodophiala at all.

Rhodophiala sounds similar in habit to Lycoris which I've always called Naked Ladies. I plan to take pictures if they bloom this fall, last fall they didn't which is why I'm rather vague on what the flowers looked like, all I remember is they weren't very large and they were in clusters atop stems. Barron, this is probably your kind of plant, I can see you liking it.

I imagine this is a plant that would not be appealing to a lot of people, especially those drawn to bright flowers. The beauty of the nolina is the form and texture not to mention the size. There are so many differing desert plants that dramatically radiate out from a center like grasses and they all work well together visually. I didn't plan to do that, if just sort of happened because of the number of plants with that particular growth form. I thought "oh, isn't that nice---just like back in design class" when we'd get an assignment to work a single shape into several combinations.

The curls really reflect the sunlight and thats especially pretty in late afternoon.

I think it plucks a definite beauty chord in my note scale.. Beauty is a different thing in the more arid lands.

Boy I couldn't agree more. The stickers, thorns and various weapons so many people dislike is one of the reasons these plants are so gorgeous. Like a cactus that has 'great glochids' or a really viscous agave with sharp black tips that is armed to the gills along the sides of the leaves.

Its the millions of sheathed white thorns catching the light that makes this cholla positively glow in the sun and especially in moonlight.

I guess we have successfully turned the thread from one persons dislike to another's treasure. I am a wood finisher and one persons patina is another person dirt. It is all in the perspective and the environment.

I can't think of any specific plants I truly dislike or hate. Even plants that I wouldn't want in my gardens, I've seen looking lovely in someone else's garden or landscape, or in its natural environment.

However, there's a plant maintenance habit that really gets under my skin. Shrubs that get carved into square boxes with the hedge trimmer. Even worse is lawns full of scattered shrubs carved like this, when it would otherwise look beautiful if they were allowed to grow in a more natural form.

I like topiary when it is taken to the totally obsessive, so a lawn full of articulated forms is art but one is bleghhh.

As far as lawn maintenance hates, how about crepe murder

There's also the plants we previously snubbed or disliked and then started liking. All my life I have disliked celosia but suddenly I'm into them. I just bought some at Farmer's Market and plan to get more. I started several burgundy ones (for the red contrast) from seed and set them out a couple weeks ago but I'm hoping the orange and yellow pointy ones I bought will look like flames coming up among the grasses -- Pyro-grass-scape. I like that idea which is probably tasteless since we are in the midst of fire season due to the dry grasses right now but ideas come from all kinds of places.

Lantana's are another. I spent decades (and my childhood) not liking them because the common Ham & Eggs grew in my grandmother's yard down at the end of the driveway and its was somehow really creepy looking to me, I think it was the mix of yellow/pink blooms, who knows. Anyway two years ago I got on a lantana craze and went around clipping starts off various hardy ones growing around here because I knew the punky emasculated hybrid ones in the stores were not hardy. Its the reason and first thing I ever posted about on the Perennials Forum just because I just wanted to talk about lantana's because I was obsessed that year.

People around here are true masters at Crepe Murder. Its a true Okie art form. I don't get it and I really REALLY don't get trimming shrubs into balls and boxes.

Intentional topiary forms is one thing, but hacking off the tops and sides in a straight line as a lazy way of pruning was what I meant.

Crepe murder also reminds me of how bad it looks when the city sends workers to hack branches away from utility lines and they leave very lopsided trees in their wake.

Mmm, I admit to having a couple of buxus topiaries...nothing as spectacular as an elephant (My son bought pics back from Thailand where they are mad for topiary)...but just a couple of (gulp) box shaped boxes (square)-in defiance of the preponderance of box balls which appear to have swept Cambridge).

In another life, I would have enjoyed being a hairdresser (I do all the family)...which I consider to be a type of indoor pruning with slightly tricky foliage.

Camp. - I love that description of hairdressing as pruning! I'm sure I'm going to have that image in my mind at all future hair appointments :-)

Camp, I hope that your revelation about boxy foliar sculptures hasn't shamed you :)

The two cottage's encased in ivy across the street here are box topiaries. They have square eyes with rectangle mouths and lids on top. I always think of trimming beards when they get trimmed up making the ivy all nice and square. Little boxes, little boxes and they're all made out of ticky tack and they all......Some wire cages shaped into animals & covered in ivy would set the whole thing off, actually it might make it work.

You all are still making me giggle!

A few years ago I was given a gift certificate to a nursery for Mothers Day. ( I'd just moved houses.) One of the things I picked was a helenium with brown blossoms. It's drought-tolerant, and I guess I thought it it would look restful next to a more vibrant-colored bloom. From a distance, it just looks like a dead spot. It is inoffensive and in theory deserves a chance to live. Plus I have that issue of it being a gift. I'm probably too much of a softy to have a really nice garden. I think I'll move it to the other side of the garage, where my eyes won't fall on it so often.

-Judy

LOL Judy, I also have a few of those 'gift' plants.

Annette

This thread has been so fun to read! I'm guilty of pink and other "offenses," but happily realized I've reached a point of nonchalance about what "everybody" thinks of my garden. It has a ton of limitations and so do I, which kind of forces adherence to my favorite garden quote:

"Plant on a whim. Lay the
footpath where your heart says it should be. Change things because you feel
like it. Garden for the love of it."

~Lindley Karstens

I couldn't help but think of Camp.'s comment on haircuts as pruning, plus comments on frou-frou topiary when our Cole got his spring haircut today! For your amusement, some canine pruning:

Before (in desperate need of pruning!):

With accumulated debris!:

The finished topiary!

crazy world . People make their dogs look like bushes and their bushes like dogs

For the first time in 3 decades, I have been persuaded to go to a hairdressers instead of my usual mangling with kitchen scissors. As I like to spend my money within my community, the nearest shop specialises in Afro-Caribbean hair but I had noticed some competent scissor use on my daily dog-walks (and I didn't have to undergo the torture of washing). Sadly though, I have now been given what I can only assume is the stylists idea of 'English Matron' and I now have a weird bob not unlike a certain La Clinton! Still, an afternoon rose pruning should sort that out.

I'm assuming Camp, with "the hairstylist's idea of 'English Matron'", that you're of the female persuasion.

But then (re La Clinton), of course, Bill is the gorgeous one.