Plants That Suck :: You could grow better.

Stella D'oro? You mean Stella D'OH-NO...

2009-12-13T07:14:00.000-08:00

These little yellow stinkers are saturating every Wal-Mart parking lot, clustered around every strip mall's roadside sign and jammed in the "landscaping" of every newly constructed house due to their "re-bloomability" (new word, dont bother looking it up).

As far as reblooming goes, they aren't so hot. You get a first flush and then a dribble of blooms after that. Nothing so rad as to have covered half THE FRIGGIN' EARTH IN THEM. They are short and wimpy and you just end up looking at that lame grassy foliage and I'm just not having it. No.

No.

Bittersweet: A Petition

2009-11-11T11:29:00.000-08:00

To whom it may concern: this is a petition to change the common name of the plant bittersweet, also known as Asian bittersweet, also known as Celastrus orbiculatus.

To wit, there is nothing sweet about bittersweet. It's an invasive species. It's poisonous. It's the little vine with the capacity to choke 100-foot trees. It's so hard to tell apart from its U.S. counterpart American bittersweet, people say American doesn't live here anymore, and anyway the two hybridize so readily (Remember that?), we can't even replant the non-insane version that's made in the USA.

Worst of all, bittersweet seeds are often distributed because people use the berry-bedecked vines for fall wreaths and arrangements, and then just throw them out. Waste plus the spread of invasive species, all for extraneous ornament! That, people, is awesome.

What, then, should we call bittersweet? I petition you, dear reader, to join me in renaming it. Maybe bitterbeast is more apt? How about bidet seat? Bad lunchmeat? I'd really like to just call it gone. Suggest names in the comments, and then call it gone in your garden.

It's like your garden has dandruff...

2009-11-02T17:33:00.000-08:00

And each seed is a flake on your new black velvet jacket.
Oh, how I hate you Eupatorium rugosum, with your aliases and your stems that are too strong to pull out without using super-human powers and your late-season blooming when I'm just too tired to go out there and deadhead every single flower in the state.
You may have some cool relatives, like Joe Pye Weed and Chocolate Eupatorium, but so do I and yet CLEARLY some of my relatives suck too.
Half the country thinks you suck entirely and the other half apparently used Head And Shoulders or something and you're not bothering them as much. But I live on the half that you're flaking all over so do me a favor and T/Gel it outta here.

It's Knotweed, Don't Ya Know.

2009-11-02T14:41:00.000-08:00

Since we’ve just come off the best time to get rid of it, for our inauguration, I’d like to ask, you know what plant sucks? Japanese knotweed sucks. We’re talking Fallopia japonica, aka Polygonum cuspidatum. It’s a big component of a whole tableau of invasive species that have infested our roadsides here in Massachusetts. Et tu, Rachel Carson?

You know who else sucks? Its big bro, giant knotweed, Fallopia sachalinensis. Together, sure, they're a big threat to native plants. What I bet you DIDN’T know sucks is the fact the two have hybridized to birth a true demon spawn of a knotweed. The Voltron of knotweeds, if you will. (Except evil.) The Mighty Morphin Knotweed. What will they take out next?

Fortunately, there is something you can do for knotweed besides drown it with soul-sucking chemicals. You can eat it. Apparently it tastes just lovely in all kinds of dishes, and here are a few from the kind folks at the New England Wildflower Society.

What about after the “wild rhubarb” stage NEWFS talks about? Lord knows the stuff’s gonna keep growing. Well, I’ll tell you. The best time to knock out knotweed is late in the growing season, when it’s blooming. If you can stand it, let the plant get big enough to bloom, THEN chop it to the ground and/or spray with an organic herbicide like Burnout and/or chant while dancing in a circle, naked, swinging a sharpened spear of the plant. At that point in the season, knotweed will be putting all its sucky plant energy into flowering, and will be MOST unhappy you disturbed it. But beware, if you dig it, they will come. Any fragment of root left will produce a new plant.

Don't forget to dispose of your cuttings in a way that’s sure to see them disposed of, e.g. leave them out in the sun to desiccate first. Roots and shoots may produce new plants where soil is moist, and the spread of invasive plants is just one more unpleasant effect of stormwater runoff.

Last but not least, odds are you won’t find those two knotweeds at your local garden center, but don’t think you’re off the hook if you’re growing this little beauty instead of the mothership!

That would be Fallopia japonica ‘Variegata,’ a variegated cultivar of our invasive friend. It and other knotweed cultivars set seed and sends out runners just like their unvariegated parents, and many will revert back to their natural state. (Pure evil.)

You could grow better.

Welcome to Plants That Suck!

2009-11-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

AK: Plants That Suck. Let's do this thang. But first, I think we should have an amusing dialogue about why we're doing this thang, which I will transcribe and use as our introductory post. Why, Amanda, are we doing this? Do tell.

AT: Because nobody is keeping it real.

AK: Word. So it is incumbent upon us to keep it real, and sarcastically. I think that's good. Anything else you'd like to add?

AT: Don't believe the hype?

AK: Uhh... Is that an addition, or a question?

AT: I'll leave that to your discretion.

** Let the sucking begin! **