Hallson Gardens

I too have tried many of these plants mentioned. It's strange how the first couple years I loved them and then I started fighting them.
I just wanted to mention crownvetch. Years ago I had a very nice rock garden. I saw a pretty pink flower( in the Sunday paper,) it said it was a very good plant for rock gardens. Well a few years later I got rid of my rock garden that was overtaken with this plant! I still find it growing in the grass around the house,35 years later!!!. If you have a spot that you can't mow and want a hearty groundcover, that's your plant.
Bonnie

Artemesia 'Limelight' isn't a groundcover.

Artemisia 'Limelight'
(Artemisia vulgaris)
Zone: 3 -10
Plant Type: Perennial
Light: Full Sun
Habit: Upright/Mounding
Soil: Well-Drained
Height: 12" - 18" Tall

I hear it can crowd out other perennials! Ugh! Good-bye, Limelight, I see how you got your name!

Artemeisa Limelight will grow about anywhere, and it is gorgeous. I don't for the life of me know where they got the height estimate on the tag. Mine (as I mentioned in a previous post) was probably over 7 feet tall when the blossoms came out. It's a gorgeous plant, but it can't grow anywhere that it can escape. I have tried for the last couple of years to warn the people at the local nursery about it, but they insist that what I have must be something different. They have only grown theirs in a pot on the porch, and there it gets about 2 feet tall. Mine in the pot last year reached about 4 feet. If you have a place bordered on 4 sides by cement or buildings, you might be able to contain it. Too bad such a lovely plant (and one so tempting in those little containers!) is so aggressive! Also, it doesn't keep the bright color as it grows. There is some color on the leaves, but it's brightest in the spring.
Linda P

I regret Equisetum Hymalesciroides "dwarf horse tail".
It looked so cute in that little pot.

Geeze, it is like grass and popping up in a 3 foot wide area around the main plant which I keep cutting in half and it still spreads.

This year I am digging it up with a huge root ball, repotting a small chunk in a pot and burying pot and all. If it is not contained it will be gone.

Down with the chameleon plant! I hate it and pull at it every year! This year I may brush on round-up.

I am wondering if I will regret planting Campanula 'Chettle Charm'....let you know later.

I did get a plant i didn't ask for once. I bought seeds at the big K (you know who's seed line) it was supposed to be an ornamental grass with a seed pod looking like a rattle snake rattler.

Anyhoo...what germinated was a beautiful patch of yellow nut sedge. I have been battling it for 4 years!
Anyone have any advice? I have tried eptam but it is now off the market and I couldn't till it in 6" anyway. Roundup doesnt completely kill.

For me it was something we called Yellow Archangel. It has spread all over my hosta gardens. Also planted the Artemesia Limelight two years ago and now need to get it out of that bed. we are still pulling Bishops Weed from the evergreens on the hillside. The biggest problem we have is with Creeping Charlie. We will NEVER get rid of it. It is everywhere and grows quite tall in some areas. Can't spray as it is among the hostas in one area and all thru the lawn. They don't want us using anything that can wash into the lake. What should one do? .......Jackie

Gardendollee - ouch - nutsedge! Round Up will kill it if you use the stronger dosage but you might have to apply it twice to get the younger sprouts. Manage is also the name of a herbicide that will kill nutsedge. We haven't used it yet but it is designed to be used on lawns to rid them of nutsedge and it can be used in daylily fields. Last year, I had to pull out nutsedge around seedling clumps so the daylilies would not be shaded by that evil stuff. I'm sure the label will give you other plants it can be used around.

jay dee

Achillea 'The Pearl' has to be the most invasive I've ever grown, there is no eliminating it. It even spreads into the lawn and survives mowing nicely, forming thicker mats. My only regret...

I WISH I had such problems as Campanula pyramidalis taking over! It is biennial for me, and never self-sows. A perfect companion to some magenta Phlox also.

Oh thanks Jay!!! I will try it. The nutsedge is mixed with my perennials so round up is risky but i can brush it on.

Lysmachia 'Firecracker'

I thought of another one. Lamiastrum, I believe is the name. It's gorgeous, but it quickly scales anything in it's path. I found it 4 feet up a bridal wreath last year. It spreads along the ground, but doesn't stay there. I planted a small clump 3 years ago, and I have a patch about 12 feet by 8 feet this year. I pull it out every spring, and try to beat it back several times during the year. It's engulfed a huge clump of Francee hosta, and nearly strangled Shade Fanfare last year. I guess it's time to haul out the Roundup.
Linda P

I was out strolling the garden inbetween rain today and checked on the demise of the Artemesia Oriental Limelight - HA! I still found bits of it in the rudbeckia and I looked down and growing out between several raised landscape timbers, there it was. There is a stem of it that must be 18" long, just as happy as could be. It must think Round Up is a fertlizer.

jay dee

I planted a trumpet vine several years ago, only to find it coming up every where in the beds. I've been fighting it with a vengeance ever since. Have got two places it has popped up this year. But I think I've got a way to finally get rid of thanks to someone here on Hallsons. I wish I could remember who it was. Anyway, I take baby food jars, fill it with the strongest herbicde I can get. Poke a hole in the top and then feed the vine in through the hole and then let the vine just soak up the herbicide all the way into its roots. It's easy to hide the bottle and so far has not affected any of the other plants.
I know using herbicides may bother some of our members, but I was at my wits end. Digging it up seem to only make matters worse. If any piece of the root was left, it would just grow from there. At least this way I have a fighting chance against this menace.
My advice to any one wanting to grow this vine is DON'T! And if you must, be sure to put far,far away from your prized flower beds. It's is a good attraction for hummingbirds, but there are far better plants that will do just as good a job.
Billy

What about Gooseneck Loosestrife? It's really cool looking, like a flock of geese bobbing their little heads, but when it spreads it first comes up with little eyes that resemble hosta eyes, except they're red. At first I thought it was hostas and let it go. And it kept going & going & going! It's into my one hosta bed so bad. And now with the daffodil and tulip leaves everywhere it's very hard to pull the loosestrife out.

I had pink primrose get into hens & chickens and that's really hard to get out!

Or how about real tall grass that invades creeping phlox or dianthus? That's hard to get out too!

Fallopia is another I can't get rid of. At first it was so pretty, then the japanese beetles started eating it so it looked really ratty. I have it in a raised bed around my gazebo that's made out of dry stacked flagstone, so of course it's coming out through the stones & then growing up the wall on the outside, plus it goes down 2' in the raised bed, then out on the surounding ground and comes up several feet away. I thought I had it all, but saw some more sprouts the other day. And the sprouts of course are coming up between a real old thick rose and the gazebo walls so I can't reach in there to pull them out. I'm afraid to paint it with roundup for fear I'll miss & get the rose or a clematis that's there too. Oh, and in the same spot is ribbon grass that I thought I had eradicated but I guess not!

And zebra mallows and mountain bluet self seeds all over, but I can pull them up easily and sell them at my sales. Ditto on the chocolate Joe Pye Weed. It's a big seller! This year though, I think I'm in trouble. I had some pots of it left over in my sale area last year. I noticed all those pots have thousands of seedlings, and so do the pots all around them, plus the ground all around all those pots, plus over in my garden where I had the one original plant I see tens of thousands of seedlings all over! I'm thinking this plant is going to be the most invasive thing I've ever had! At least it's super easy to pull up so I'm sure it will be ok.

Oh, yeah, Freaky. That Chocolate Joe Pie is a horror. A beauty, but a horror. I had a clump of it by the porch step. I dug it up when we redid the porch, and forgot to replant it. Woe is me, I thought. I'll have to go get another one in the spring. NOT! I have zillions of them all over my garden. Some of them come up all green, some are even darker purple than the momma, and some are just in between. I have them growing up through bushes, under trees, everywhere. If they taller than a few inches before I find them, they have to be excavated to get to the bottom of the root system. If I could get it down to one clump and then deadhead it I would be a happy camper.
Linda P

on the Chameleobn plant. It stays pretty close and does not seemsto spred, stays a a single pretty plant. Maybe ourf cold wet winters have something to do with that...O.C. happens to like it. He has most of in a new bed that It can gtake over, so he'll let yu know NEXT year if he is saying ob scenities about it too..

The usually FUNNY and always most FRIENDLY Old Coot named John, a Gardener for the Lord, saying thank YOU LORD for his good friends that share and for the nice rain that has made all his plants grow so well this year

O.C. didn't plant this b ed of Missouri Primroses. It came up on its own 3 years ago, has been put down with the weed eater, had roundup poured on it straight, and heated with a propane torch. Here it again this year.. It is pretty, but really invasive. It seems to like the back of O.C. side yard Lillium Bed and back behind the Iris planted there as a border BEHIND the liliums........

Guess it will be here every Spring. Can't take our Summer heat so should be gone in a few days. Hit 88* today and they are calling for thunder storms late this afternoon..

Enjoy...................O.C.

old72coot wrote:on the Chameleobn plant. It stays pretty close and does not seemsto spred, stays a a single pretty plant. Maybe ourf cold wet winters have something to do with that...O.C. happens to like it. He has most of in a new bed that It can gtake over, so he'll let yu know NEXT year if he is saying ob scenities about it too..

The usually FUNNY and always most FRIENDLY Old Coot named John, a Gardener for the Lord, saying thank YOU LORD for his good friends that share and for the nice rain that has made all his plants grow so well this year

Chameleon plant! That's another one I detest. O.C.! Dig it up while you can! Down here they call it Snakeweed, I'm told the horrendous smell from it attracts snakes. I don't know that for a fact, but it will send runners everywhere and right into the middle of any perrenial that is close by. I dug up an area about 6 ft. square and a foot deep, took all the soil to the dump and refilled the hole with fresh soil. Took the perrenials and picked out all the Chameleon roots I could find and put them in pots to see if it returned. So far, so good.
Billy