What are your favourite plants? Conversely, which are you really not very keen on? What are your reasons for loving (or loathing :P) a particular plant?

I love fuchsias, especially the ones with double blooms, simply because they look so delicate and beautiful. I'm also a big fan of buddlias - they look fantastic in the summer and are a sure fire way to attract butterflies to your garden. Finally, whilst I don't have any in my own garden (yet!) hydrangeas are lovely and always remind me of my (much adored) late grandmother, who also loved them and would often request cuttings from hydrangea plants that she spotted in other peoples gardens and liked the look of!

On the other hand, I'm really not keen on hostas, I think because I've never seen or owned one that didn't look like a slug ridden old dishcloth! (bitter, me? Never :P)

I love fucias but i simply cant get them to grow here! Its the same with Heather, I try to get some growing to remind me of the moors of home but it dies in no time.
Its the same with ferns, i try to get them to grow around my pond but no chance.

My all time favourite plants (for now anyway) are water lillies. Next year Im hoping to get some nice deep water barrels around the garden and fill them with lillies.

What do I hate?

Nothing really.., at least I cant think of anything that id refuse to have in my garden.

I love Buddleias(sp?), Roses and Lavender.

not keen on conifers..

I love things that smell nice, like lavender, sweet peas, freesias & yelloe roses. Buddlea (sp) also smells wonderfully spicy when the sun shines on it. I don't like plants that do not flower, I cant see the point of them.

I love growing vegetables. This year I have had a bumper crop of beans, peas, strawberries, tomatoes & potatoes, the pumpkin are looking good along with the leek (I think i will dig some up this week!) The chillies, salad crops, corn & peppers have also been good this year. I grew white cabbage for the first time this year and whilst they look a bit moth eaten (they are) once you have cut off the outer leaves the large heart is delicious -bug free and crisp.

Because of work commitments I will not be able to spend as much time in my garden next year so I planted raspberries and asparagus that will grow merrily year after year in the same spot without much attention. ..... can't wait for the asparagus to come through!!

Likewise, i love growing veg. Can't wait to enjoy our own peas next year! I'm not very clued up at all on other gardening, but do know I'm not a fan of roses, at all. Does anyone else not like them?

Sweet peas and peony, and hydrangea and lillies, they're all lovely! Personally, anything that is autumnal as well, like the gorgeous warm colours of acer. Oh, and having grown up in South Africa, I love bougainvillea and hibiscus, and especially love the heady scent of frangipani.

I collect hardy geraniums - I love the variety flowers, the shape of their leaves, everything about them (including the fact that the slugs don't eat them). I have 18 varieties at the moment, I did have more but lost several during that really cold snap in the winter.

I loathe and abominate those little begonias that turn up in park gardens;I don't quite know what annoys me about them, whether it is the stingy flowers or the fact that they always seem to turn up in neat rows, flanked with salvia and ageratum. Whatever it is, I won't give them houseroom!

I love irises- everything from the standard Dutch bulb varieties, to little Iris reticulata, gorgeous bearded Iris germanica, water flag irises and winter flowering Iris unguicularis. At the moment I've only got about 6 varieties (most aren't very water tolerant so this spring was deadly to most of my tubers), but they will be replaced.

I also love my japanese anemone (it has really big green dentate leaves and long stems with open flat pale pink flowers on) and the cheerful all year round flowers on my Kerria japonica, and I could tinker in a herb garden constantly.

When I was able to do it, I also found growing vegetables seriously therapeutic, and felt myself to be so grounded and connected with the soil and planet when it produced food for me to eat. I still enjoy being able to walk out to the garden to pick a fresh apple though.

On the down side, I've never really seen a point to those splotchy leaved laurels that always seem to be grown in municipal gardens near toilets, and I find most conifers (especially leylandii) rather boring and samey.

I also find the stickiness that seems to seep out of petunias really offputting, and finding my hand grasping the yukky texture of bindweed when I'm pottering about actully turns my stomach.

I collect hardy geraniums - I love the variety flowers, the shape of their leaves, everything about them (including the fact that the slugs don't eat them). I have 18 varieties at the moment, I did have more but lost several during that really cold snap in the winter.

I loathe and abominate those little begonias that turn up in park gardens;I don't quite know what annoys me about them, whether it is the stingy flowers or the fact that they always seem to turn up in neat rows, flanked with salvia and ageratum. Whatever it is, I won't give them houseroom!
I too love hardy geraniums, or do I call them Perennial Geraniums.?I think they are worth every penny.Long flowering period,disease free, and good ground cover.

Oh... got to hate Limnanthes 'Poached Egg Plant' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poached_egg_plant). Looks great, pretty flowers... but oh my god do the bugs love it. Snail and slug heaven. :gag:

Hmmmm, a tough one :huh:

I like most plants, I think, but nettles what was God thinking that day? :confused:

I love the smell of my black currant plant, even it's leaves are blackcurrant flavoured, and there's something oddly theraputic about training a clematis, and nipping out it's tips for thicker growth.

Hacking the buddlejia back to ground level is quite satisfying too - and that just goes nuts in retalliation - giving a spectacular display of flowers the next season :) (and tons of butterflies too)

I probably make more use of trailing lobelia than is healthy, but it works in all the pots and hanging baskets I have at the moment, so I don't care.

I'm going to try and grow 'Tumbler' tomatoes again next year I think :)

My favourite plant is my plant..but I dont know what its called :( it has three stems which had some ball things at the bottom but the ball things have now gone.. they were like the size of a plum (the ball things) with a slit in the middle with the stems coming out of that..

Does anyone have an idea what it is? Its an house plant by the way.

I love all my plants but thats my favourite...

(The ball things were on top of the soil)

EDIT...ooops sorry I didnt notice this was in the allotment and gardening group..am I ok to talk about house plants in here? :)

I reckon we'll let you! In fact, there's quite a few things on houseplants I could ask...

My favourite plants have always been Hydrangeas.Long flowering period,lovely large blooms and not attacked by anything.Most of mine are pink but I have a lovely pure white one.The only thing they lack is scent.If they had that they would be the perfect shrub.

Hydrangeas are beautiful. If yours are pink, pattricia, then chances are the soil you are growing them in is neutral or slightly alkaline - if you have slightly acidic soil, the blooms tend towards mauve or blue :) Sometimes gardeners force the blue colour by using a 'blueing compound' containing aluminium sulphate to lower the pH of the soil. My nan used to do this with her hydrangeas occasionally - as a kid I thought it was brilliant! :D

Does anyone have an idea what it is? Its an house plant by the way.

If you take a photo of it janny, you could start a thread in here and see if anyone can identify it for you. Actually, it would be great to have a 'help me identify this plant' thread going, because I also have a houseplant that I have absolutely no idea what it is! :hihi: I bet other forummers have mystery plants out there too!

Favourite plant: Sweet peas (http://www.lathyrus.com/). For their beauty, perfume and the enormous number of different varieties.

Least favourite: Japanese knotweed and bindweed. There's a huge crop of the former growing at the bottom of next door's garden through which the bindweed grows with amazing enthusiam. Unfortunately, it fails to smother the knotweed.

As for cultivated plants, I'm not a fan of dahlias. I think the flowers are pretty ugly, plus they're hugely attractive to earwigs :gag: .

Favourite plant: Sweet peas (http://www.lathyrus.com/). For their beauty, perfume and the enormous number of different varieties.

Least favourite: Japanese knotweed and bindweed. There's a huge crop of the former growing at the bottom of next door's garden through which the bindweed grows with amazing enthusiam. Unfortunately, it fails to smother the knotweed.

As for cultivated plants, I'm not a fan of dahlias. I think the flowers are pretty ugly, plus they're hugely attractive to earwigs :gag: .

Japanese Knotweed - the bane of a Ranger's life. I've spent so many hours bashing the stuff and it just comes back. Paraffin or a tactical nuclear strike are about the only things that will get rid of it

Japanese Knotweed - the bane of a Ranger's life. I've spent so many hours bashing the stuff and it just comes back. Paraffin or a tactical nuclear strike are about the only things that will get rid of it
You have to admire its tenacity in a way. When it first started to encroach on my garden, I spent ages trawling the web for ways to get rid of it. Apart from discovering that it can regenerate to its former glory from the tiniest bit of root/rhizome, I couldn't find a sure-fire method; apart from digging it up, of course. Given that its roots descend metres into the soil, it's easier said than done. When we put up the new fence last summer, I spent ages hacking away at the stuff and attacking the roots, so I speak from bitter experience

I also read that it's so hardy that it can force its way through the tarmac on roads!

I would have to say that Clematis and Acers are my fave plants - as for ones I hate I'll have to think on that one! Oh an I love meadow flowers!

I also read that it's so hardy that it can force its way through the tarmac on roads!

Yes I've heard that Eco warrior types protesting against road building schemes often plant it so that the road crumbles years later. Not sure if this is fact or myth

It can be poisoned I think and I'm sure it can be eaten - the stem pulp is a bit like rhubarb

Yes I've heard that Eco warrior types protesting against road building schemes often plant it so that the road crumbles years later. Not sure if this is fact or myth

It can be poisoned I think and I'm sure it can be eaten - the stem pulp is a bit like rhubarb
It's a small picture, but here's (http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/media/image/n/p/pic2c_1.jpg) one I found of the knotweed peeking through the road surface. Not sure if the cracks were there already for the knotweed to take advantage of, but it's certainly doing a good job of working its way through the road substrata.

The mature stems are hollow, a bit like bamboo, so it's probably the young bits of the plants that can be eaten.

foxgloves and bluebells are my fave.... love the flowers on the 'Poached Egg Plant'... if anyone has any seeds..... hint,hint;) my back garden at my old house was covered in egg plants.... havent seen it for years though...

I know bindweed is a pain in the garden but i like to see the flowers, looks great when its thick and in flower in the wild... the only plant i hate would have to be ....... nettles hate the things.

... know bindweed is a pain in the garden but i like to see the flowers, looks great when its thick and in flower in the wild... the only plant i hate would have to be ....... nettles hate the things.
The flowers are lovely, but it can do some real damage to less hardy plants by suffocating the life out of them. It's another plant whose roots burrow very deep into the soil and can regenerate from the tiniest bit, so it can be hellish if it gets into a bed of established plants.

I've grown Morning Glory (http://www.humeseeds.com/ott.jpg) from seed. They're a little delicate, and you need a nice, warm, south-facing wall for most of them, but they're a sort of cultivated variety of the bindweed. Not sure if they're actually related, but they're very similar in appearance, except with larger and more colourful flowers.

I love Grass of Parnasus. It doesn't look much in books but when its covering a Durness hillside it is spectacular. And I love the name.

Hedge Woundwort I like despite its smell and Sweet Cecily because of its smell

I don't really hate any plant but I'm not keen on Sycamores and bracken

Thought of another little plant I'm overly fond of- Ophiopogon 'Nigrescens' (http://www.hardybamboo.com/shop/detail.asp?c_urn=62&show=all&urn=835), a very sweet little spreading grass that's almost totally black (I think it appeals to my goff side- and it matches my car and most of my clothes, and come to think of it, my favourite iris (Helen Proctor (http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/69050/)) too!

My favourite plant is my plant..but I dont know what its called :( it has three stems which had some ball things at the bottom but the ball things have now gone.. they were like the size of a plum (the ball things) with a slit in the middle with the stems coming out of that..

Does anyone have an idea what it is? Its an house plant by the way.

I love all my plants but thats my favourite...

(The ball things were on top of the soil)



Could it be an amaryllis? look on google pics. ( I would post a link, but I'm a bit of a technophobe!)

Hydrangeas are beautiful. If yours are pink, pattricia, then chances are the soil you are growing them in is neutral or slightly alkaline - if you have slightly acidic soil, the blooms tend towards mauve or blue :) Sometimes gardeners force the blue colour by using a 'blueing compound' containing aluminium sulphate to lower the pH of the soil. My nan used to do this with her hydrangeas occasionally - as a kid I thought it was brilliant! :D
So glad you like Hydrangeas, Tracy,.I dont like forcing a colour change with a "blueing compound". I do like my white one though. Never quite know when to prune them though.If you do it at the wrong time,you cut the flower buds off,forming for next year.

It's a small picture, but here's (http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/media/image/n/p/pic2c_1.jpg) one I found of the knotweed peeking through the road surface. Not sure if the cracks were there already for the knotweed to take advantage of, but it's certainly doing a good job of working its way through the road substrata.

The mature stems are hollow, a bit like bamboo, so it's probably the young bits of the plants that can be eaten.

It can grow from a section of root weighing 0.5 grammes and can push its through tarmac (have seen pics of it through 2 year old tarmac).
Strong systemic weedkiller can do the job in autumn as the sap drops.

Hey,

I like too many, I don't think I could say my favourite... I have things ranging from *exotic* such as cone flowers, passion flowers and agapanthus to the traditional fox gloves, lupins and poppies.

Let's see... Which one did I take the most photos of??

Possibly the Gerberas the most, then lupins and bleeding hearts.

I like Red Hot Pokers for some strange reason and bamboo, but I hate Roses, nasty scratching things that your mower power lead likes to get tangled up in.

I absolutely love Agapanthus, Fuchsias and Alos

peonies, magnolia and succulents have to be my favourites (how to narrow it down !) although I've just got myself a fatsia and its beautiful.

Dislike Azaelas (spelling ?) and yellow flowers (because they attract wasps).