Gardening Frustrations

kylith

Have you ever had something just go all wrong? The expensive plants died despite everything? The weeds just will not die? The 'shrub' grew 25' tall in six months?

For me my current frustration is that, while on holiday there, I bought a pack of 'Seeds of Lanzarote'. Anticipating some attractive and unusual succulents I waited until last month to plant them, it being the season, and out of about 50 seeds 4 have germinated, all the same species. No worries, I thought I'll have four nice cacti/succulents.

They're peas.

A journey of hundreds of miles, a pack of compost, a sunny window sill. For four pea plants.

And I don't even know if they're edible or not.

Rancid

Yes! Yes! Sadly, yes! :rolleyes:
All part of the fun of trying to grow stuff!

At times like that I re-read the little section in Chiltern Seeds' cultivation leaflet which goes like this:
"Don't throw any pot of seeds away for at least TWO YEARS after sowing - we have had many seeds coming through after this period. Above all, don't be put off sowing a seed because you feel it may need special treatment - one thing you can be sure of, it won't grow if left in the packet!"

I find that paragraph particularly consoling/encouraging when I look at a seed tray of 40 seeds with 5 lonely seedlings visible. (Rock Samphire planted 6 weeks ago.)

So, don't give up for another 23 months!

Supercell

Banana seeds, don't get me started. I have tried and failed miserably:(
In the end I had to swallow my pride and buy plugs, for shame.
On a more positive note, i have a corner of the garden I call the mystery prize. Thats where i dump pots of stuff that didn't grow, often i find a year or so later that something totally unexpected and forgotten about is growing!

Tree

Yeah, i picked up cactus seeds in lanzarote and got coriander and oxalis out of it.

My other frustration is the terrible lawn mowers that landlords buy. Makes grass cutting more difficult than it needs to be.

Rancid

Supercell wrote: »

...
On a more positive note, i have a corner of the garden I call the mystery prize. Thats where i dump pots of stuff that didn't grow, often i find a year or so later that something totally unexpected and forgotten about is growing!

Brilliant!! I'm going to steal that excellent idea!

I've been in the habit of reusing the compost and having the *occasional* surprise but I like the idea of the mystery garden corner better!

kylith

Tree wrote: »

Yeah, i picked up cactus seeds in lanzarote and got coriander and oxalis out of it.

Not just me having problems with those pesky Lanzarotters then!

At least coriander is useful. I'll pop these into the garden when this cold snap is over, be a bit of colour anyway.

looksee

By chance I have a walled garden that gets a good bit of sun, is by the seaside so never really gets too cold, and the soil is fertile. Stuff grows.

Well weeds grow. And aquelegia, now officially a weed in my garden, and spanish bluebells - why did i think they were a good idea? Two barrowfulls dug up in a relatively small space about two foot by five. I know for certain they will come up again next year in spite of this, I will just have to keep digging them till I win!

One nice thing that did come in by accident (bird?) is wild violets, they love it, and fortunately I love them, so they are officially not weeds, though they have to be sometimes dug up from odd places! I have been forbidden by my granddaughter from digging up the one that has come up in the gravel.

yellowlabrador

What about a polytunnel full of avocado plants? last count 6 of them and me too soft hearted to kill them. All from my homemade compost. I have great luck with bananas. First put the seeds in a thermos with hot water for 24 hours. Then plant in a heated propagator. Then spend the next couple of winters overwintering larger and larger potted bananas in the sitting room. I gave up....

Supercell

yellowlabrador wrote: »

What about a polytunnel full of avocado plants? last count 6 of them and me too soft hearted to kill them. All from my homemade compost. I have great luck with bananas. First put the seeds in a thermos with hot water for 24 hours. Then plant in a heated propagator. Then spend the next couple of winters overwintering larger and larger potted bananas in the sitting room. I gave up....

Hmm this cunning thermos idea has me intrigued, I hate being defeated by seeds!

pwurple

Banana's need too much babying for me.

Houseplants are my general failure... I'm not one for feeds and watering regularly, and we are lucky to have a house with a lot of windows, so they get frazzled almost immediately. People love to gift me beautiful houseplants, because I do love plants, and mysteriously don't have any.

My neighbours love for spraying weedkiller is another bugbear. Clouds of weedkiller drift over the wall and zap my perennials. Boo.

looksee

I find on the whole that houseplants thrive on not being over-watered and over-fed! The most satisfactory are the orchids that you can happily ignore most of the time and they reward by offering beautiful sprays of flowers that last for ages!

pwurple

looksee wrote: »

I find on the whole that houseplants thrive on not being over-watered and over-fed! The most satisfactory are the orchids that you can happily ignore most of the time and they reward by offering beautiful sprays of flowers that last for ages!

Hehe. I do have a happy cactus. But everything else has a very short lifespan!

kylith

looksee wrote: »

I find on the whole that houseplants thrive on not being over-watered and over-fed! The most satisfactory are the orchids that you can happily ignore most of the time and they reward by offering beautiful sprays of flowers that last for ages!

Orchid's have the most unfair reputation for being difficult to keep! I think people repot them in normal compost and totally overwater them. I use the proper orchid compost and water with fertiliser once a week, leave them to drain completely, and I've had no problems at all.

yellowlabrador

I think central heating and overwatering are the worst sins for house plants. I move all the plants into the garden for the summer and move them back in before the first frosts. I water once indoors and then don't water them until spring. I have an open fire and a damp house though.

Roselm

Aaah! That's the third lot of seeds that haven't germinated this year!
Sowed carrots and onions outside earlier in the year.Not a thing came up.
Then in a different spot sowed peas. Still nothing germinated today so dug down and not a sign of anything doing.
At least my rhubarb, garlic and beans look happy!!!

livinsane

I saved seed from mange tout I grew last year. Carefully dried them and stored them over winter. Planted them early under plastic and raised lovely little plants in pots. Finally planted them out and the next day my pet rabbit ate them.

yellowlabrador

The slugs have been on a rampage since the rain started. all the marigolds are dead and 6 pumpkin seedlings.

Grindley

Growing (or more accurately trying to grow) artichokes have been my greatest gardening disappointment. I've been trying to grow them for years. You are not meant to harvest the plant till year 2. When the only plant I managed to get to survive into its second year finally produced a flower head - the plant was blown over and snapped in two by gale force winds........sigh. G

pwurple

Fricken beautiful apple and cherry blossoms completely obliterated by high winds. Gah.

kylith

Rancid wrote: »

Yes! Yes! Sadly, yes! :rolleyes:
All part of the fun of trying to grow stuff!

At times like that I re-read the little section in Chiltern Seeds' cultivation leaflet which goes like this:
"Don't throw any pot of seeds away for at least TWO YEARS after sowing - we have had many seeds coming through after this period. Above all, don't be put off sowing a seed because you feel it may need special treatment - one thing you can be sure of, it won't grow if left in the packet!"

I find that paragraph particularly consoling/encouraging when I look at a seed tray of 40 seeds with 5 lonely seedlings visible. (Rock Samphire planted 6 weeks ago.)

So, don't give up for another 23 months!

So glad you posted this! I've continued watering the seeds and I now have a mystery green spike (and another starting, I think) and some pink nubs coming up. Who knows what they'll turn out to be, but at least something else is growing there.

kylith

kylith wrote: »

So glad you posted this! I've continued watering the seeds and I now have a mystery green spike (and another starting, I think) and some pink nubs coming up. Who knows what they'll turn out to be, but at least something else is growing there.

Shortly after this another green spike appeared so now I have two saw edged something-or-others. The pink nubs turned out to be some sort of cactus, of which I now have about 10. There's something else coming up now, goodness knows what. Everything is probably still too small to positively identify.

looksee

kylith wrote: »

Shortly after this another green spike appeared so now I have two saw edged something-or-others. The pink nubs turned out to be some sort of cactus, of which I now have about 10. There's something else coming up now, goodness knows what. Everything is probably still too small to positively identify.

Growing 'interesting random stuff' - watching it peep through and trying to figure what it is, is one of the joys of gardening. I particularly enjoy the Chiltern seeds shrubs lucky dip.

Sorry, this is off topic and against the run of the thread - but I would love to have Kylith's mystery tray!