Regretfully Yours

One of humankind’s most wasteful emotions is regret. In a recent article, life coach, Martha Beck aptly explained: pondering for more than one moment the result of an action, albeit accidental or premeditated is like wrestling with reality. Deal with it and move on.

That goes for gardening too. We’ve all had our misjudgments, we’ve rued the day when we installed a renegade plant that for slight lapse of sanity has caused un-tolled hours of disruption to our lives.

I, for example, once planted Veronica chamedrys-Speedwell, for its lithe blue mist of flowers.

I merrily spread it from one end of the border to the other. I soon learned that it is a formidable opponent.  I planted it with the full knowledge of a customer who yearly purchases a truckload of it while we secretly wonder when he will be indicted for selling weeds! Yes, I invested in this demon. It’s a low growing happy-go-lucky plant whose growth habit is the very cornerstone of the description of “dense mat”. I often dream of borrowing the super-collider from Brookhaven Lab and nuking it to kingdom come.

We recently performed an intervention at the nursery, counseling a customer against purchasing Physostegia. “It’s by far the most disobedient plant I’ve ever encountered,” I offered.

   Physostegia or “Obedient Plant” is named for the fact that you can bend the stalk into an        unassuming position and it will stay that way, is really a ploy to distract you from the root    system that will propagate itself with every yank of this colonizing hooligan.  Unless you  are four years old, or a florist; who cares if you can bend the stem in any direction? There are  those who swear they can not get this plant to grow in their garden. and others who adore it.  Either way I have to wonder if Physostegia is not a candidate for The List of Regret.

Lysimachia numalaria aurea-Creeping Jenny, is another for the list. I see it rampaging across a garden conquering every square inch with a facile thirst for life. I half expect to see it grow across the lawn up the porch, in the back door and across the living room floor of one residence I tend. While I fancy the way it lights up the underpinning of the 20 foot tall Cedar tree it was meant to brighten, I do not appreciate my efforts enveloping every plant in its path. At least it’s banana/chartreuse glow makes me smile, despite my..ahem…regret at it’s very sight. 

Lobelia siphilitica

Once again, beguiled by a blue hue, Lobielia siphlitica hypnotized my senses and I broke down and planted it. For four years now, I have been ripping this plant out. Its benign plain -Jane quality escapes detection, unless a trained eye is scouting for it. One swift yank and its tangle of tell tale stark white roots are laid bare. Each one of those heavenly blue flowers must broadcast millions of seeds, and they do not give up sprouting year after year; decade after decade.

“The only good Onethera is a dead Onethera,” I found myself muttering yesterday. I see miles of Evening Primrose in my dreams, smothering and gilding every piece of ground in sight. I honestly can not fathom how certain plants do not cover the entire earth like a sci-fi garden gone wrong. With over 300 species to choose from, it’s quite confusing as to which variety actually opens only in the evening.

Will I ever get that last rascally piece of veronica chamedrys? I find myself vowing to never to plant it again…….. unless…. in great swaths that will fill in rapidly for maintenance free miles of color. Great drifts of girlish blue and stylish bananna/chartruese, and those impish twirling stems of physostegia, Onethera Siskiyou trailing wistfully…………. uhmmm…..never mind.

this article appeared in its original form in The Landscaper

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