What’s for the chop this year?

This week we are all primed for action! Not for planting things though, but digging things out! Are there plants or features in your garden that need a severe culling before you achieve that dream?

We 3Growbags have certainly got a few and are ready to harden our hearts and wield that machete……

First up for me are the ‘Bonica’ roses.  Oooh, I can hear my sisters squealing “sacrilege!”  I do admit that they have done their thing magnificently for almost two decades, but in the last couple of years, their performance has really dropped off – the flowers have become smaller, the leaves more spotted, the stems more gnarly.  

I’ve kept them going by taking out the oldest growths at the base during the late winter pruning, and prompting younger more productive ones to develop, feeding them well and generally coaxing the old girls along.  I know I could try cutting the whole lot to the ground and seeing if they would revive…but no, I’m ready to throw in the towel and heave them out.

Nothing draws in the butterflies like a buddleia – it’s not called ‘Butterfly Bush’ for nothing. I do have a few for that very reason.  But they are pretty ugly bushes generally, needing serious pruning every year, and holding on to their dead flowers in an unattractive way (I have the same gripe with some camellias too).  I’ll keep the ones in out-of-the-way corners to bring in the Red Admirals and Peacocks (and even the occasional Swallowtail!), but any in the main borders? Rev up the chainsaw.

My last one is more like the culling of an aspiration.  I adore the look of wildflower meadows – pure dreamy beauty in the extreme. And we were told that it was the ONLY way to get back all the wonderful pollinators that we have so neglected for decades.  But now we know that there are plenty of other ways to encourage those precious insects, birds and mammals.  

A proper wildflower meadow is such hard work! All that ground preparation and maintenance (getting rid of grass and vegetation, impoverishing the soil, mowing, weeding, re-seeding, etc. etc.) and then just when you think you’ve got the hang of it, one of the wildflower species you sowed makes a bid for world domination, and the whole area becomes a monoculture.  No, from now on, I’ll admire other people’s wildflower heavens, and spend my time on less stressful gardening tasks. Double-digging or something. 

I definitely thought hell would have to freeze over before Elaine would dig up a rose. She’ll struggle in her grisly task though as roses are swines to get out. We had to tie the base of an unwanted rambler to the back bumper of a car to shift it. (There is a video of this manoeuvre but I’m not going to publish it in case a troll reports us to the Health and Safety Executive). I do have some sympathy with her buddleja issue and they seem happiest growing on railway embankments anyway but WILDFLOWER MEADOWS????

I’m continuing with my long term project of removing any plant in my garden that could be described as ‘a good filler’ and replacing them with capricious but delectable divas like trilliums and peonies. This year it’s the persicaria that’s for the chop. Creeping relentlessly from its allotted corner and then collapsing in a heap at any mere whiff of a drought, I’m fed up with telling it to pull itself together.

And the crocosmias have already gone. The thuggish C. ‘Lucifer’ got very short shrift round here and now it’s supposedly better behaved relatives have also been shown the door for hogging too much space unproductively.

Over in the shade bed I’m calling time on the Solomon’s Seal for a) also refusing to stay in its lane, and b) looking too untidy post flowering ( not really it’s fault it has its own specific little sawfly that reduces its leaves to tatters) I’m replacing it with the much sexier Disporum ‘Night Heron’ that’s been touted around Chelsea Flower Show for the last couple of years with great effect. I do feel a little bit like the BBC axing Sue Barker and replacing her with Alex Scott but we do have to move with times.

Yes I’m still reeling from Elaine sending R. Bonica to the dog food factory after years of faithful service (she’s a softy at heart, though, isn’t she? I think she’ll take cuttings.)

On the plus side, my sister’s ruthfulness gives me courage to reveal I’ve this week dumped a division she gave me of Aster divaricatus. 

In September I wrote about it thus:  ‘A. divaricatus seems to emerge in a state of emotional collapse. She needs to get a grip’. Her fate was sealed there and then. She does have attractive chocolatey coloured stems but is outclassed by her persicaria (no drought issues up here Laura!) and calendula neighbours at the time of flowering – and I’m not a sufficiently good gardener to pull off ‘understated’. A la Alan Sugar – ‘she’s fired’.

And emboldened by Elaine’s trashing of her wildflower meadow, may I similarly regret my enthusiasm for Rosa Rugosa. Fragrant scent, big hips and spectacularly resilient (so far, so Kim Kardashian) but what a beast to manage. It’s prone to flopping over in our Highland gales revealing its grey and unappealing nether regions. It’s horrible to prune back or pick up and it suckers with infuriating persistence. But it’s tougher than a cockroach to destroy – don’t worry – some will survive.

Finally Hemerocallis (day lilies)– gulp, another gift from Elaine. Don’t you think it takes up a lot of room for not very many flowers? It might just be my Highland climate, I’m not sure it deserves to die. It’s moving from my ‘privileged’ south facing, sheltered bed to the dreaded ‘slopes’ – the equivalent of Siberia in my garden. Like Romulus and Remus, it will have to take its chances and will no longer get such devoted care from me (a fate thoroughly enjoyed by most plants TBH).

An evergreen shrub with fabulously fragrant flowers at this time of year – and it’s more adaptable than you think! Find out why Louise has chosen it for her Great Plant this Month:

Here is a link to a video Laura made about the brilliant little hedgehog gates that we have just re-stocked in our online shop. And that’s not all – we have some lovely new items in the shop, including an egg helter-skelter! Don’t forget about Mother’s Day! We have an absolute HOST of gifts, books, cards and garden tools that she or they would love and if you order this weekend we guarantee they’ll be sent out as a tracked delivery and arrive in time for the big day!

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