Your plant nemesis

[bridgetmkennitt]

We all have at least one. It's that plant that you try to grow and grow, but for some reason or another, it just dies or doesn't bloom or doesn't grow any vegetables.

What plant do you consider your nemesis?

Comments

[redsnake05]

I've killed mint, but it really is just too hot here, and I can blame that, right? I feel you on this one, though, because it's one of those things that should grow, isn't it?

[loligo]

Not all mint is created equal - some varieties are definitely more finicky than others. In my climate (middle of the US, hot humid summers), chocolate mint is the toughest.

[loligo]

The first year I grew a garden, my basil turned into amazing bushes nearly waist-high. And I thought, "Whoo, here's a plant I can rely on!"

Yeah, no. Ever since, basil has just sulked along and given me some weedy shoots. I am baffled.

[3rdragon]

Turnips are easier than radishes, you say? Interesting. I do like Hakurei, and had mostly written off turnips as "won't be any better than radishes."

[willidan]

Roses. I have tried and tried to grow roses. Fertilize them, plant them in different areas, pamper them, ignore them. Nothing. I've nearly killed the old rose bush that have been growing in my hard from before I moved in.

[sleepyfairy]

Gotta be corn. You'd think that with how common corn is in Ontario and how well it supposedly grows, corn would flourish here but I plant some year after year and get maybe one or two dinky little cobs. I don't really know what I'm doing wrong.

My mom, on the other hand, somehow managed to kill bamboo.

[bridgetmkennitt]

Yes, you can totally blame the heat for mint killing. That's what I blame for why my lavender died recently.

Alas, plants never do what they should do.

[bridgetmkennitt]

Some daffodils just want to be freeee. But hey, silver lining, at least they bloomed for a season instead of not at all.

[bridgetmkennitt]

Maybe the delphinium seeds were duds? Totally not your fault!

[bridgetmkennitt]

Somehow, always, bugs find my basil and eat it up. It doesn't matter if my basil is outdoors, indoors - something else eats my basil before I ever get to it.

[bridgetmkennitt]

D'aww! :(

Maybe it was the type of roses that were the problem?

[bridgetmkennitt]

Nomnom corn. Maybe it has to do with the soil at your place? Totally not your fault!

Heh. Sometimes bamboo gets tricky.

[onyxlynx]

3 non-consecutive years of duds. Not my fault, and I don't live there anymore. I may try again if I move back there. Or I could let the lawn care people wrestle with it.

[sleepyfairy]

Maybe! We have a bunch of cedar trees near the back fence thanks to the neighbor planting a ton of them so they could be doing something to the soil. Since I moved the garden this year away from the fence maybe it'll grow better! Here's hoping!

[mmegaera]

True.

[zesty_pinto]

I think I've mentioned this before, but mint. Good god, mint. Everyone says the stuff is indestructible and if that's true then I must be the shikigami of mint because it never seems to thrive longer than a month under my watch.

[ladybrooke]

They are! I bought another one and now have it living under the deck, where for some reason things we throw down there with just roots left in the pot go wild (like the herbs that grew to be 5 feet tall). Maybe the magical vortex area that is the deck underside will work?

Awwww, I'm sorry. My mom and I just give the other the stuff we can't grow right, and make the other raise it for us (hence how I get to enjoy roses and she gets to enjoy a hibiscus tree). Fake orchids are good though! Those are the only types of orchids I've ever had, because I'd only be able to raise it inside and we have way too many cats for any plant to survive inside.

[malnpudl]

Right there with you. So weird, right? *sigh*

[malnpudl]

Corn, for the home gardener is HARD. Very, very HARD. (This is my story and I'm sticking to it.)

[touchturnfly]

Hi, I'm very new here and glad to have found this community!

My current adversary: bitter gourd. I made various attempts last year and none of the seeds would germinate. This year I tried out my last seeds in the package. Didn't work either. I ragequit and threw the seeds in a bucket outside.

After watching a very helpful youtube video I realized I had been doing things all wrong. I recovered seeds from bucket. But still, nothing. Either the seeds are too old... or they didn't survive the nights outside. I'm afraid I'll have to buy new seeds. D:

[malnpudl]

Did your petunias get devoured? Mine always get discovered and eaten by sneaky little green caterpillars that are the exact same color of the foliage. Argh!

[malnpudl]

Oh, man. That one is tricky. I can sometimes get it to work in a pot, at least for a couple of years at a whack, but never in the ground.

[malnpudl]

That is just unfair, right? Hmph.

[onyxlynx]

Petunias were sufficiently long ago that I don't remember why they didn't come up. They just didn't.

(Now I want to plant things, and I don't have an actual garden here.)

[theora]

I thought the same thing - they're pretty much radishes, right? But no, they've been totally reliable for me (the Hakurei, anyway, I haven't tried any of the longer season storagey ones). And my daughter loves them. They're one of the things she specifically requested to grow in her little patch this year.