Your chives are invasive?? Mine barely stay alive due to the summer heat and our cutting on them. We never have enough lol.

So far..knock wood...I haven't regretted planting anything (myself). However the yard we inherited had St. Aug grass which has been a monkey on our back which finally died due to bugs, heat and our horrible irrigation water (way too salty and too much iron). It's now replaced with bahia grass. Fingers crossed that it lives thru the winter.

I have passionflower too but when I see it pop up elsewhere I just yank it up. Need to keep an eye on it though. Some types aren't invasive at all but I've noticed that the butterflies aren't interested in that kind.

Denise

Hi Cathy

This is a good thread. I will not plant again gourds. They take over and not too versatile for cooking and did not like the smell of the vine.

Sorry Denise, but this is the only picture that I have available close up to protect them from the pickleworm. lol

And the horned melon vine, not only is invasive, it went all the way up the maple tree and it takes forever to ripen, it has fine needles like a cactus.
And to end it all, my family did not like them!

{{gwi:58481}}

Silvia

Coral vine & Chinaberry - & my neighbors have a Carrotwood tree & Sugarberry = (

JICAMA! Not again until I have acres instead of square feet to grow it in.

Silvia, I'll take the gourds off your hands if you still have some. I do gourd crafts. cora

What's wrong with Mexican Petunia? You mean the purple flowers..

Cora

After I planted only one plant of the gourds, I realize what a big mistake they were.

But one of my friends happened to really like them for eating, so I gave all the gourd seeds to her. :o)

But I know that Tom still has his original seeds left, I am sure he will be glad to send you.

I only have the horned melon seeds, anybody out there who want to try them? And no, I don't recommend them to anybody. It would be good to sell them when ripe, I have seen them at the store for $ 5-10, and they produce like crazy.lol

Silvia

I planted a princess's earrings tree. It looked so cute when it was a foot tall. It gets very dramatic looking pink, yellow, and white flowers that look like they belong on a princess.Then it forms an unusual looking seed pod. Unfortunately it grows very fast in all directions and has long very sharp thorns that really hurt. It makes bougainvilla look tame. It is coming out in a couple of weeks before I am totally slashed up.
Linda Leaf

LOL!! Silvia, thank you for the offer, but I have gourd seeds coming out of my ears!! I'll be teaching a gourd mask class at the Fl Gourd Society show in Palatka the last
weekend of Feb. Everything is free but the food and the classes. Every year, the talent is more awesome.
cora

Cuban buttercup, False poinsettia, and oyster plant.
ARGH! I'm not crazy about the candlestick cassia anymore and it's too late to do anything about the white BOP.

Abosolute biggest mistake: Mexican Petunia - Ruellia, yes the purple flower!

I learned after it was in the ground about three years. It grows up through neighboring plants and bushes, can't extract it and it chocks off the bush. It grows into the lawn. It doesn't stop. I call it ground cancer. I finially dug it out from the front of my house. I had to dig the ground at least three times to get all the roots. Then I put weed block and mulch down and it grows through that. It sprouts from the very smallest piece of root you leave in the ground. BIG mistake!

St aug grass definitely.UGH! Past owners planted Ruellia and wedelia and it is awful Most things I can get rid of.I had a small bird of Paradise then so how nasty the roots got,same as African Iris so OUT they went . We are still battling wedelia and Ruellia,Ive pulled,burned poisoned covered with cardboard but there still here.

The Florida Dept of Ag says :

"Mexican petunia has been designated by the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council as a Category I invasive plant. That means it has the ability to displace native plant species so as to alter native plant communities. While it is not illegal to plant it, unintended consequences can last for ever."

In Georgia, I planted a Mermaid rose. It's a beautiful single creamy yellow, blooms most of the year. The catalog said it would cover a whole fence. Didn't know that meant every bit of the fence and all the yard in between. Fierce thorns. I tell people that's why I moved.

Hi
Gee, if I removed all my mistakes there wouldn't be anything left lol
My latest is a Schizolobium parahyba. Planted from seed
in 01. Has broken in winds as low as 30 mph so you can imagine what the hurricanes did. It's now pushing 30 feet and has a buttressed trunk. Trying to maintain it with 4 heads to lower wind resistance and hopefully keep the height down. I'm sure I'll have to remove it within a year or two if the storms don't do it first.lol Was hoping to get one flower before then lol. Far from being my biggest mistake but right now it's the largest . Going to take a few bucks to fix it.
For most "invasive " catagory runaway, a red form of Passion vine. The more you prune it the more it grows and the smallest piece will grow another plant.. I let it grow up my neighbors palms and the bright red flowers 20 feet in the air are cool .
Only original mistake I have left from moving in is a shefflera. I planted all the others with my own hands!!!
Might mention my "Dwarf" carambola. with 4 heavy prunings it's over 25 feet both ways. While the fruit is delicious can't seem to eat over a bushel at once.
Oh well enough for now lol gary

OMG, thanks for the head's up on the Mexican petunia. I would have fallen for that, lol! It looks so innocent.

15 yrs ago, I ordered some sort of honeysuckle from a catalogue. I was disapointed that all they sent was a 5" root. Husband laughed, "That'll never grow! You been HAD!"

Well 4 yrs later it was 20 ft high, had eaten its trellis, taken over the kitchen roof and started peeling the shingles, dismembering the gutters.

And here I was afraid the dainty thing would have a rough time in the NW OH winters.

It never attracted any butterflies or hummingbirds either - just the biggest bumble bees I've ever seen. Just what you want on your patio.

Took us 6 hrs and two truck loads to get rid of, and we ended up concreting over to keep it from growing back.

The passiflora incarnata pulls out easy enough, but like you said Gary, one little bit and the whole thing grows back. It's eating both porches in Ohio now.

I grew it as an herbal remedy for back pain - but it's given me more pain than it relieves lol.

Some of these stories are pretty funny. Sorry. I've done my share. Wisteria for a start. I planted it on a trellis first, which it destroyed. So stupid me moved it to grow up an oak, which it tried to strangle. So finally I cut it down and poured straight Roundup in holes I drilled in the stump. Five years later it still sends up sprouts, some times fifty feet away. Tallow trees would be my next bad decision. They were actually recommended by a FL gardening book I bought. (1970s) The book also recommended Ear Trees and Melleleuca. Laurel cherry I never actually planted, but I paid good money to have two of them removed. One of which was laying on my roof. However, if I had all the money and time I spent trying to maintain and water a St Augustine lawn I could have retired five years ago. Well actually I did retire five years ago, but I could still use the money. ;>)
john

Oh no! I did not know about the Mexican Petunia. I had one for years in a pot and just this summer put it in the ground. I guess I will be battling it for the next year or so. That's too bad, because it is pretty. I don't understand why home depot and other stores are allowed to sell invasive plants.

I don't understand why home depot and other stores are allowed to sell invasive plants.

I thought HD and other stores sell non-invasive sterile Mexican Petunias. Marcia (Manature), I think you pointed out before?

Sweet gum and crape myrtle...and then put in an unscreened pool! The leaves! the gumballs! the flower petals! what a mess.
Lori

OMG - I forgot about the wedelia & cherry laurel!

olyagrove said:
I thought HD and other stores sell non-invasive sterile Mexican Petunias. Marcia (Manature), I think you pointed out before?

I inherited those "sterile" Mex. petunias in our yard, lol. They may be sterile but they send out underground runners like crazy. I also have been battling them and gave many away to my next door neighbor who put them securely in her rock garden where they cannot escape, into her OR my yard.

Spanish shawl.. so innocent looking in that little pot :(
I'm sure there are more but that one reminds me every day.. Oh and porterweed ..I think that I kill more things butI keep on trying .

Asparagus fern. Terrible stuff! Spreads like crazy and makes the ground around it hard as concrete. I'm thinking about dynamite or c4, but haven't gotten a permit yet.

If I had it all to do over again, it's more about how I would plant instead of what I would plant. I would start at the outside edge of my yard and work my way in towards the house. That way I would have the edge well defined and I would have beds I could get at from all sides. Instead I planted in the existing beds around the house and they grew out from there. Now the back edge is hard to get to.

Kate

My biggest mistake - not starting with a good plan/design. After spending years experimenting with a little of this and a little of that planted wherever I could find a spot for it, at least I now know what I don't want. And I've learned not to buy on impulse!

John

I saw the invasive purple Ruellia for sale at Lowes yesterday . Not the first time I have seen the wrong plant for sale there .

And , it's not the fault of the Garden area manager . Corporate policy ya know .

John
I still buy on impulse lol My "landscape" plan evolved from there is nowhere else to put it lol. To me the only serious mistakes involve trees and vines. Wow can those be expensive to remedy lol
Of course there is the other side of the coin if a plant is invasive it means it requires little or no care??
Maybe the old saw?? "The right plant in the right place"
Oh oh, that sound s like even more of no impulse buying?? lol gary

I've made so many mistakes, I don't think I have one I consider the biggest! One I haven't seen mentioned: When I first started the veggie garden raised beds a couple of years ago, I had my DH plant a mango tree and a meyer lemon actually in the middle of the small garden. Duh! The trees looked small and innocent then, but grew and grew. I gave away the mango this year, but the meyer lemon still takes up about a third of the largest bed. I love that little tree and can't risk removing it.

Anna

Wow! A lot of good info here. So, does anyone know where there is good info on "what is good to plant"? Probably cactus! And how in the world do you get rid of dollar weed? Darn stuff is taking over my lawn and veggie garden.

Wedelia, It is the scourge of my yard and has ruined more than 50% of the property. The only way I have seen to get rid of it are daily hand pulling or scalping with a box blade.

Lots of good information here. Thank you all. I so wish we could keep this thread at the top, or something like this in a FAQ. It seems FL has alot of people moving in and out of the state all the time, and that alot of transplants (people) like myself have no clue on arriving in FL that some of the beautiful plants we see can be nightmares to maintain or remove.

I have had my own battles with the box store landscaping the landlady has installed here. Some of what I've cursed includes the purple showers (ruella), a thick underplanting of snake plant, common aloe, and something that looks like a small orange-flowering heliconia (not sure what it is) planted around a hibiscus. The hibiscus is planted a foot from the laundry room shed, so has to be pruned severely and often, to keep the branches from pushing out against the shed and gradually upheaving the root system and laying it over on its side. I can't seem to eradicate the snake plant, aloe, and heliconia(?). I keep pulling and pulling as these keep coming up. My aim is to dig the hibiscus out, re-plant/center it in the bed, and have something tame and well-behaved underplanted. I don't feel that I should have to spend money to re-landscape the landlord's poor plant choices nor her plant locating. It's a heck of alot of work for me to handle all this, with bad joints, bad heart and lungs. But I figure as long as I'm here I have to just have certain problem plants 'die', lol, to make my life easier. Since she does not hold up her end of the agreement as far as her responsibility for the yard and landscaping, I can move (easier said than done, with such high housing costs here), or just deal with what mess I've got myself into.

Word to the wise - if I had it to do over, I'd check out the landscaping and maintenance/types of plants, prior to signing the lease. In other words, Renters, Beware!

girlsaylor

Not planting trees in my sun-baked and barren-looking front yard when I moved into my house. There's such a glare in the east-facing living room all morning that you have to pull the drapes until at at least noon, and it makes the room very hot in the summer. But when I moved in, I was convinced I wouldn't live here long enough to ever enjoy the fruits of that labor and expense - and here it is 13 years later and I'm kicking myself!

Biggest mistake in my yard was planted 30 years ago. Mahoganies put in directly under the power lines. Now FPL has to come every couple years and cut a giant V out of the middle of each one. The trees are increasingly weak from all that hacking and will have to be taken out pretty soon, if I hurricane doesn't do it for me.

I've put in a baby gumbo limbo well away from the lines to replace the shade but it will be a long time before it's big.

It may have been the same previous owner who planted Zoysia grass, which is soft and pretty and impossible to keep out of the mulched beds.

One man's mistake is another man's treasure. I grow 14 different types of Passiflora (Passion vines) and I love them. Some of them sucker and have to be pulled, some of them need frequent pruning, but the flowers, butterflies, and hummingbirds are well worth it.
Josh

I like the Passion vines too. How high will they grow on a trellis? I need something that will grow taller than a 6' fence. I really like the red ones (Lady Margaret)and blue ones (Marie).

Black eyed susan vine...from 3 seeds, I've been fighting it for 8 years.

Sanseveria. was in my yard when I got here. No matter how many I pull up, they come back.

Sword fern. See Sanseveria.

Mother of thousands. See Sanseveria again.

Elderberry. I will not even tell you how much I now hate that plant.

Mexican Sunflower Tree. It just gets too freaking big and if one little twig falls on the ground, or grows down to the ground, you have another one.

Cranberry Hibiscus. The plant that took over my yard...I could never eat enough of it to keep it under control.

Cassia Alata. Way too invasive.

Root Beer plant. Just keeps coming up...everywhere!

Giraffe's Knees. See Root Beer plant.

Karen, I have the same "sun" problem. The sun glares in the front in the morning so I have to keep the blinds closed on the East side of the house until around noon. I unfortunately didn't plant a large shade tree in the back (west) side of my house. The afternoon sun is killer! So, every afternoon, the East side gets opened and the West side gets closed. Anyone know where I can get a "cheap" (if there is such a thing) large shade tree, that I can put in a pot on my back (west) patio?

.SITEmessedUPc