Talkback: Most hated plants - Page 6

I hate wallflowers

I really like native foxgloves.

A plant that raises my blood pressure every time I see it are hideous freak foxgloves, that have been bred so that their blooms stick outwards or even upwards, or bred in hideous freaky colours.

The blooms of foxgloves are meant to be graceful and to hang down pendulously.

WORST OF ALL - the winner of this year’s Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Year award is a hideous version of same - Digitalis Illumination.

There's a photo of this ridiculous plant here:
Digitalis Illumination

Now, SpringWatch is supposed to be a wildlife program. That's supposed to mean wild flowers - pretty native plants.

What do they have in the background of the main set - two tubs of hideous freak foxgloves.

I hate privet because the smell of the flowers is so nauseating that I can't sit outside when it's flowering if it's anywhere in the vicinity. For the rest of the year it's no problem, though boring.

Anything that has been bred to look and behave differenty from it's natural way.  Double flowers that the bees cannot use, pink daffodils, yellow geraniums, poky little pants that should be tall and graceful.  Variegated leaves with bright flowers, never meant in nature.  I suppose anything that has been interfered with so much that it no longer looks like a plant at all. 

my mother in law was given a blue orchid and fell in love with it... gradually it went white!  she was very disappointed, personally I thought it it was unusual but hideous.

I've been wondering all day what plant I hate...still can't think of one...

Blue asters. I just don't want purple flowers that late in the year when I'm feeling all orangey and warm! Its maybe because I like a lot of blue in spring and summer, so I'm fed up with it come autumn. Really not a fan of mahonia - I don't think I've ever seen one that wasn't leggy, frost-damaged, or both. Cordylines. Why would you, when you could have phormium, or even yucca?  

Holly trees  i really hate them apart from the varigated ones

I'm with the rose haters, no specific reason I just don't like them. The same goes for foxglove. I do love dianthus with their beautiful fragrance and I adore the humble lupin though I am so close to giving up on them due to the horrible aphids that I just don't seem able to control.  

asters for one you cant get rid of them easily either. Reading the list of plants others dont like is so interesting we all have our different ideas which is a good thing

I don't know what it's called but both my neigbours have it.  It's a rapid climber (fast like bindweed) with tendrils and I see the flower heads full of potential seed berries poking over our 7 foot tall boundaries waving in the breeze trying to get in to my garden.  It seems seriously sinister, I feel like they are taunting and threatening me. Errrgh!

Box (buxus)

It's also the one reason that I gave up watching GW. I don't want to see and hear it mentioned in every episode of the show.

Given the chance, I'd see every example of it destroyed..

i hate busy lizzies and firs..

Yes! Thankyou gardenfantic, I've been wracking my brain over what plants I actually hate...busy lizzies for sure....I think......maybe...if they are the really gaudy kind, yes those gaudy type.

ooh, and hyacinths. i HATE hyacinths. they reek and they look like they're from Mars. I can appreciate most plants, really, and can see they all have a role if placed well, but if somebody FORCED me to put hyacinths in my garden i really have no idea where i'd begin trying to make them look nice. Yucksome, as my kids would say.

Hyacinths are rather ugly, I will agree.

I think the crux of the matter for me, is not the actual plant but how its used.

I cannot stand all bedding arrangements although bedding has its place and those of older generation took much pride in landingstrips of brightly coloured non-hardy vegetation.

My pet hate is gaps, as was the requirement in the 50s and 60s when showing off single specimens was the done thing whilst I'm also too much the control freak to let things run loose and flop everywhere in an unsightly manner. No no no.

I like lush but controlled. I like shape and form, foliage and texture over colour and perhaps find plant combinations most difficult when having to consider flowering colours and seasons. I mean, my sofa only has to match the wallpaper and it stays the same colour and doesn't grow or need any pruning or maintenance and will never die on me just because we had a wet winter!!

I need a lie down now.

Anything that looks plastic so begonias, busy lizzies, exotic orchids although native meadow European orchids are lovely.

Euphorbias in all their forms - native, exotic, poinsettias.

Bedding plants and schemes from marigolds to Love Lies Bleeding and the Victorian and public planting schemes usuing flowers and foliage in gaudy colours and formations.

Golden Rod.

And then the abominations like pink delphiniums, blue roses, pink daffs and so on.   Definitely not an improvement on nature.