Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Take away my garden tools, bulldoze the garden, maybe I could manage to take care of a couple pots of silk flowers?

(sigh)

OK, I was feeling so smug, so pleased with myself that I had managed to keep my first Buddleia alive over winter. It survived the polar vortex in Minnesota!

In early spring, I started a thread about the nice new growth I saw on My Buddleia. Now granted, the main stem seemed to have croaked, but there were some nice, green side stems with new growth popping out all over (kind of odd). Who cares, it survived.

I've been watching this plant grow like crazy all spring, but somehow it seemed different. The color was kind of off, the leaves looked kind of different and the plant was kind of floppy. Weird, but it was probably due to the cool, wet spring. It will toughen up when it gets warmer.

So today I was out in the garden tidying up. From a distance I looked in the direction of the Buddliea and saw something purple. They were flowers! Flowers already? I raced over to the plant for a better look and -------

Those aren't Buddleia flowers. Those are Belladonna flowers (Deadly Nightshade). How did that get in there? Snip, snip, snip with the pruners. Still more snip, snip, snip until there was nothing left. The Buddleia is gone. It never was here. It didn't survive the winter. All along I've been nursing a Belladonna thinking it was my Buddleia.

From the size of the Belladonna, I assume it started growing next to the Buddleia last year and i just didn't notice it. This spring, it took off.

Oh well. Yesterday I happened to stop at my favorite nursery and picked up a couple 1/2 price Veronicas. I had no idea where I was going to put them because the garden was full.

Now I have a spot.

Kevin

Sorry you lost your BB but they produce billions of seeds, are easily grown from seed via winter sowing and grow up to be much more hardy than their nursery-grown relatives. I'll gladly save seeds for you this fall from my 'Black Knight' plants (all were grown from seed via WS).

Mine is a no-bare-dirt garden, and that comes with a certain risk when you move too fast, get overly engrossed in tasks, and can't leave well enough alone.

When I first moved here, I thought I was lucky to have chrysanthemums coming up all over the place. Am I the only one that thinks the foliage of a small ragweed looks like a mum? I never saw ragweed in my life, and never knew I was allergic to any kind of pollen, but yeah, very allergic to the hundreds of ragweeds blooming all around my house that first year.

Actually I think I've made this same mistake myself.

On the other side of the coin, I was just about to rip a weed out today. Fortunately it got buds yesterday. It was my Coreopsis 'Mercury Rising'! I had planted it last year and assumed it didn't make it through the winter. I am quite pleased (and relieved I was late on weeding!)

It's kind of weird how the minds work. I know the difference between a Nightshade and just about anything else. Lord knows I've pulled enough of them out of the garden! Because this one was growing right smack where the Buddleia was growing I didn't really, really look at it. Of course it was the Buddleia. There was no question. Oh yes, I forgot to mention a couple of weeks ago I took cuttings from the thing and have anxiously waiting for them to form roots so I would have lots of Buddleias! After I realize my mistake, that pot-full of cuttings got tossed quicker than you can imagine.

I'm not terribly bummed. I get over my plant losses quickly and I did need the space.

Kevin

And hey, now you have an excuse to go buy another butterfly bush! :0) (whereas I had to call the sprinkler company for a repair...)

My brother-in-law two years ago nurtured and babied what he thought were marigolds in his window boxes. Yep, you guessed it - weeds. We still tease him about window boxes and marigolds...

:)
Dee

But I did something really stupid. I have lusted after New Mexico privet (forestiera neomexicana) since I saw it growing in a nursery a couple of years ago. I recently found one that I could afford and ran off with it skipping with glee. Except that the leaves looked strangely familiar and not quite what I had expected.

Right outside a bedroom window is what I call the trash tree. It's planted too close to the house so various people, including us, have hacked pieces of it off, none too gracefully. Other bits have rooted where they touched the ground so it was a very messy tree which was going to come out when we got to it.

You can see it coming - it's a NM privet. I could have dug a piece out and planted it any time in the past 2 years. Now that is dumb.

Cheryl

My buddlea are thriving here in zone 7 (MD), as they should. That they don't always in your area is not their or your fault.

The second time I pulled it out, I realized what I had done immediately. I replanted it and babied it all year, but it died. Which made me wonder why if you pull a weed and just toss it back on the top of the bed it will re-root and grow spectacularly, but why this plant, lovingly replanted and tended to, died.....

Dee