my girlfriend planted one carrot in her veggie bed.When she told me i looked at her quizacly and said,What do you meen you planted one carrot." she assumed that one sead would yeild that bueatiful bunch you got all tied up at the grocery store.I got a good chuckel out of that.

(**snort**) LOVE the visual of the white car with purple-bird-poop-pox all over it.

There's no doubt about mine -- the wisteria from Hades that I have mentioned in several threads on this board. It's planted (NO, I did not do it) about 1 foot from the foundation of my house. I think there were originally three plants. Now the trunks are as big around as baseball bats and it's trying to pull down my chimney. I hate to think what it looks like underground. DS goes at it with a chainsaw every once in a while. Maybe I'll finally get it all killed someday.

BTW, I had cleomes too, when I moved here (same genius that planted the wisteria). But I wouldn't call them pleasantly predominant -- mine were viciously invasive. And I was yanking them out of the ground even before I had all the boxes unpacked in the kitchen. I have no trouble murdering them. (And I'm still pulling volunteers today, almost 4 years later.)

St. Bernard Puppy Syndrome (SBPS): The neighbor who planted a Colorado blue spruce 6 feet from his driveway (when it looked like a cute little dwarf Alberta spruce) many years ago. He kept flat-shearing off the driveway-side of it with hedge clippers, until it looked like a 40-foot tree cut in half (with the flat side looking brown and dead). He finally had a tree crew come out and cut the thing down.

I guess I'm equally stupid. I put a London planetree in a narrow space (30 feet, maybe?) between my house and my other neighbors. It's still a baby, so we'll see how it works out. But HEY, my wife wanted a big instant shade tree...and the rest of the yard is full!

I planted a 'Bloodgood' London planetree about 15 feet from the house and ten feet away from the 2nd story deck before the neighbors built a tall fence closer to it and my husband built a retaining wall about five feet away from it. I'm hoping it wasn't the "Dumbest Place to Plant Something". We'll see whose hits whose house first.

I just checked in to get caught up with one of my favorite threads. Am bummed about Vrtlar's chestnut tree!! Too bad some clever architect can't come to the rescue.

This thread has me cracking up!

In my rental house, there's an apple tree (dying and dropping apples, I might add, but too expensive to have removed according to my dear landlord) at one corner of the backyard and a mulberry tree directly across in the other corner... SOOOOOOOOO that means that when I mow this time of year, I have jelly all over the one corner and applesauce all over the other (if the kids run when I ask them to get their apple-collecting buckets).... it's a freaking MESS!! Who's bright idea was that?? Thank goodness they're in the very back of the yard and I can avoid the whole area most of the time....

Another Bush in the White House

lol...lol...lol
I will have to tell that one to my ultra lib-lefto-if it feels good do it family members.

that is a good one!!!! seriously!!!!

God Bless George Bush!!!!!!!

The previous owner of my house had planted a row of boxwoods along the walkway. What's wrong with that you ask? Well, the boxwoods blocked the afternoon sun from the walkway, and if it had snowed, or there was ice on the walkway, well you can guess the rest. Those suckers are gone, and I've got ditch daylilies growing there now.

The euonymous my neighbor has planted right along the stairs we share (I live in a rowhome, and we share the steps and walkway up to the houses). I never realized euonymous has needle-sharp prickers on the tips of the leaves until she went about 2 weeks without trimming it and I almost got my eye scratched out walking up my own stairs! OUCH! Why would someone plant something that can impale you right along steps? As a contrast, we had a euonymous growing up at my parents house, and I had no idea it had prickers (it's the SAME type of bush) because it was planted in a garden bed along our fence, nowhere near where people walk!

Ok, I'll just say Mexican Primrose, in the ground! It spread like wildfire, and no one could put it out. I planted it in the front of the house, it took over the whole flower bed it was in, then it popped up in the BACK yard! Luckey for me we moved...

I had a slope of ground beside my back deck that was plain grass. Boring. I wanted flowers that bloomed continuously and found the perfect pretty little thing. Crown vetch. My friend tried to warn me. Did I listen? Nooooo. I'll say this much for it, it does have nice blooms. I've decided it's part of the yard forever, after trying for 6 years to eradicate it.

There are two enormous (about 4-5 feet THICK) oaks planted directly between the street and our front walkway (from which they are roughly twoo feet away.) They are ancient, and dead branches fall constanly on the road, the driveway, the sidewalk, our roof, and all over the front yard! You cannot go out barefoot after August, or risk the ouch ouch ouch! of acorns under foot. They shed their leaves about a half foot thick everywhere whithin a three mile radius. The front yard is constantly shaded, and while this is a blessing on hot summer days, I cant grow anything more than hostas, periwinkle, and a few struggling shrubs in my front garden. Oh, and did I mention that our front sidewalk looks like a rollercoaster?!?!?!

Our neighborhood is highly manicured so you always feel obligated to have everything look perfect. One summer someone pointed out that a plant was growing in our 3rd story gutter. It was about 1 foot tall, but I wasn't going on the roof to pull it out, so it grew in the gutter all summer long! Don't ask me how!

Our neighbors planted bamboo with no restraints--

it's everywhere! In the sidewalk-- the driveway-- the foundation of our house . . .

When it comes into my garden beds I'm going to take action.

Planting award-winning hybrid tea roses next to the dryer vent, which spews out moisture and encourages powderly mildew. Duh! And yes, I'm the culprit.

Well fortunately the previous owners of my house were not much into landscaping and gardening. It took me the first year of living there to fix head scratching problems inside the house. Like if your missing an electrical outlet in one room, you just cut a 1"x1" square through the drywall into the next room, so your plug can fit through the hole and be plugged in there. Anyways they did manage to plant two pine trees directly under the hydro lines. Its like they used a plumb line to line them up, so that the hydro people would have to cut the very centre of the tree off.

The previous owner of my house must have sporadically had gardening interests and must have come home with a plant or two a season and just made a place for it in the middle of the yard. There are no flowerbeds. Just about 20 clumps of a single plant here and there randomly in the yard. Iris here, glads there, hibiscus over there, a mum by itself. And now tulips. She even put 4 asiatic lilies, in a row, along the sidewalk. Mowing is a nightmare in this place!

"Dumbest Place to Plant Something"?

Downhill from a lava flow would be pretty dumb? Probably already been mentioned I expect. ;o)

Al

here i thought i would win a award, lol, guess not. i built a 3'tall 4'square raised flower bed --under a silver-leafed maple tree. but--mint grows good there! i believe i could--if i could,- pick up the bed, and leave the 4'square mass of roots intact! its such a mass of roots a shovel wont go into it.

Cactus/Succulent/rock garden.....

.....right under the run off from the roof. *sigh*

I thought my neighbor was crazy to plant some flowers about 6 feet from the curb, might as well have been smack dab in the middle like Ipomoea mentioned. Just one more thing to mow around and waste time on, as it is right in there with the grass. No border, nothing!

I'm one of those softies that can't bear to rip out a plant that has gone to all that trouble to take root, especially if it looks happy where it is.

As a result I have stupidly placed plants all over my property.

I obviously don't have the heartlessness that good gardening demands.

Well when my sis in law first started gardening i gave her a squash plant for her front flower garden. She was very impressed with the great big yellow flowers and huge interesting seed pods ;-)

In my 25 year old neighborhood, the contractors inflicted the properties with junipers. Vertically oriented junipers, prostrate junipers ... junipers under, on top of, right next to, behind, and inside other junipers. And all rooted within 3 feet of the sidewalk so that all you really see of these monstrosities is a super flat, dead brown, non-growing, sheared off side (to keep the sidewalk clear). I can't stand looking into the hollow, lifeless interior of all these shrubs when I'm walking around. Some of the ones along our sidewalk were planted just a hair further back, so they still look reasonably wild and unsheared, but the others ... My SO is one of those people who can't stand to kill a living, growing (OMG, they're still growing!) thing, so we'll probably always have them.

Well, in some cases maybe the previous owner had specific size requirements in which a particular planting would be "maintained" through seasonal pruning. This does not apply to aggressive trees with roots that could cause foundation damage. I planted a pyracantha at the from entrace to my home. Some may think this is stupid, but I love the berries and the white flowers in the fall through spring. SO what I have done is trained the pyranchta into a spiral topiary in which I have 6 nice sized rounded balls which looks so elegant gracing my entrance. Keep in mind that this does require more maintenance, but it's part of my pruning routine. Now, if I sell my home I would inform the buyer of any such plantings. If they choose not to keep it up, then of course it would be considered "a dumb place to plant something".

You shouldn't live in your home for the next person. However, you should consider your neighbors and your property boundaries when planting anything that is aggressive. I also think that including such "miscellaneous" information in the disclosures will warn the prospective buyers.

How about planting morning glory's on a trellis behind and next to rose bushes....darn near need stitches each time I pull the volunteers out (by the thousands)

The people who owned my house before me planted some really large growing shrubs like a foot away from the foundation of the house. I've dug out all but one now, and moved them.

Then they planted the live oaks 10 feet from the back of the house, which is nice for the shade, but not for when those roots start interfering with my foundation and I have to pay an exorbitant amount of money to have them root pruned.

Also, they planted some things in deep shade that needed to be in sun, which I also had to move.

I wonder at the stupidity of people sometimes. I mean, why would they plant a citrus tree between two oak trees? I take it that it was because they didn't want to walk out to the back of the yard to water it, because that's the only place there's sun in the back yard.

But then, I planted an elderberry next to my garage, and it's grown into a monster that slaps me in the face every time I walk by, so I guess I'm not immune to stupidity.

Now to my pet peeve....the stupidest place to plant things is in a climate where they don't belong. Living in Florida, I see so many people hauling hostas, lilacs, and bags of bulbs down here just to have them die. Obviously, they do no research before they uproot these nice, healthy plants and bring them to a place where they won't tolerate the harsh conditions in the summer and lack of winter chill. Same thing goes for people who come to visit and haul tropical plants back up north, then want to know why they aren't coming back out after that last -5 snow storm they had. Do the words "TROPICAL PLANT" bring visions of snow and ice storms to mind? What in the world makes them think they'll survive in that kind of climate?

My house's former owner had planted boxwoods along the front walkway. Nice going! Any snow or ice on the walkway would take forever to melt because those stupid boxwoods blocked the afternoon sun! I had my dad take them out back in '97 and life's been so much better! This same owner had also planted two ceder trees in the front corners of the yard; what this meant was that back in the winter of '96, my husband and I had no place to put all the snow we shovelled out of the driveway! Yes those are gone now too!

We have a neighbor whose got some very lovely crocus' planted in an exact checkerboard 12" x 12" intervals in their front lawn. SINGLE bulbs, not clumps. When they bloom in the spring it's rather a polka dot effect. Yet their garden beds consist of a stripe of yews along the foundation of the house. Perhaps the most pathetic display of stupidity parading as creativity I've seen.

Don't plant an entire box of wildflowers that are supposed to cover 2000 square feet in an area about 50 square feet. I'm learning that lesson now. Duh on my part.

My vote for the fast-growing fir tree the neighbors planted maybe 5' from my kitchen window a few years ago. This happens to be one of only four small windows where the plants I bring in in winter can get a bit of sun, and this tree now ensures that the ones in this window will only get a tiny bit at the end of the day. On the other hand, they are very nice neighbors, whom I like, the tree makes sense from the standpoint of their landscaping, and I am grateful when it blocks the western sun in the hot summer.

I was visiting Steve Muldovin (Famous Daylily Hybridizer) in Ohio a couple of years ago and he told me this story.
A little Chines guy came to visit him and brought him a little pot of bamboo as a gift. Steve planted it out in the back fourty where he had other trees and things he would grow there to bring up to size. to make a long story short 3 years later when we were there the bamboo had covered close to an acer. and he had tried burning, chemical, cutting, you name it. He said (after a while I just Kind of accepted it)?!.

It may be just an urban legend, but I think that up one's nose is about the dumbest place to plant something. Rumor has it a kid shoved a bean up his nose and it germinated. I like the image, though.

Okay, um Kimberly 6 and her mulberry tree...birds pooping purple poop has got to be the funniest thing I've ever heard!
Close 2nd would have to be...another Bush in the White House. Lovin it, so clever people!
The previous owner had roses planted in the front of our north facing house before we moved in-always in shade and always had mold, so we moved them to the very sunny south facing back yard! Still occasional mold, but much happier and big beautiful roses!
Our next door neighbors planted palms under the power lines-it's getting close to chopping time...sad!
Our next door neighbor on the other side has bamboo border that is like weeds!!! Good for privacy and very nice and green, but very invasive!

I'd say anything planted within white gravel mulch - BLECH!!

ok i simply have to reply to this post. after reading down 3/4 of the way and having tears in my eyes and cant see to read more. LOL

The one that got me the most isnt even plant related. The 1"x1" hole in the wall for the electrical plug to fit. I am laughing at this because I have done this. Mind you in my own home, not rented, mortgaged, etc. Bought and paid for home. I had no outlet in my bathroom, yeah go figure. But one was on the other side of the wall where the laundry hook ups were. After asking my husband for 3 years to fix this, one day i had enough. Went and got a utility knife and sure nough' put that infamous 1"x1" hole to reach the outlet on the other side. ROFL

they still laugh at me for doing this. and before you ask, i still own my home.

Let's see... I planted "climbing roses" all the way around my deck, then laboriously trained them up and over the rails so we could _see_ them while sitting on the deck. (Hello bees and thorns!)
I also let ivy grow up my _vinyl_ siding because I thought it was "cute."
I planted a "baby" lantana about 6 inches from my screened porch (grew 5 feet tall and wide in ONE season... ripping into the screens faster than I could keep it pruned down.)
I planted an Angel Trumpet in the middle of my hot, sunny, dry backyard... in Florida... in July.
The list is endless.

Oh, I'm glad this thread is still active. My dear mother (God bless her) planted bittersweet vines (male only) because she like the orange berries and pacasandra and honeysuckle on our waterfront camp in the Adirondack mountains. They all all very invasive. This is a beautiful place filled with pines, cherry, beech and spring wildflowers. For 30 years I've battled the invasives - seems like I'm loosing. ... kim

Mine is planting bishops weed or Jerusalem artichokes in my perinneal bed! Been pulling daily for 3 years now, uggghhh!!!

Someone mentioned under a black walnut tree as being a dumb place. I had heard all about that and put a garden under the one very large black walnut in our yard anyway. It has been quite successful for years: full of goatsbeard, siberian iris, daylilies, and astilbe. The tree is indeed a messy one dropping stuff all the time, losing its leaves way too early, but the dappled shade is lovely and the constant squirrel activity is fun to watch.

Dumbest Place to Plant Something?!? In my yard where I usually mow.....without telling me or some kind of marker.

Boy!! Did I get in trouble. I didn't see it, really.

This has me grinning and nodding with dismay the whole way through. And all I can really say is just because I garden doesn't mean I can do houseplants. I can even kill healthy plants from outside once they set foot inside the house. However I'll go with letting the volunteer pumpkin plant go where it was in the new quasi flower bed.... I now have some lovely humongous pumpkin leaves and a few peeps of my hollyhocks and geraniums. Sage? There was sage in there? where? under this clump of mint or that one? *grins*

Planting bareroot daylilies underneath hosta leaves and expecting them to grow.

This thread needs reviving!!! I was laughing all the way down.

When we moved in to our new house we had to tear nearly every plant out. Which was sad, because we didn't have that many on the lot to begin with. The worst were the Pygmy date palms under the eaves right up against the foundation. Looked great, but as they get 10' tall eventually it would have been a serious issue. Also, they were the perfect height to poke the eye out of anyone under 4' tall who happened to walk by.

My DH loves mint and keeps trying to plant it everywhere. He plants it and I dig it up. (Kind of like our voting... he votes, I go in behind him and cancel him out) He doesn't believe me that it will take over and be impossible to eradicate.

too funny!

bump

Anything deciduous near the pool.

(Bump)

I don't know much about gardening but it was the last thing I would do when planting.The dumbest thing I have done in gardening were to over water my newly planted seeds.I guess experience makes you a better gardener.

Love this old thread and the tons of wisdom it contains! Although I've been "doing this" for 40 years, I have a couple...

As a transplanted Yankee, where Cannas must be stored out of ground for winter, I wasn't thinking it through when I put Cannas in flower beds. What do they do here? They are definitely perennial and creep, endlessly, until reaching an impenetrable border. A neighboring Gardenia or Jasmine - not an impenetrable border, I don't want to find out who would win such a battle, or watch such tangle happen. Am working on a new spot just for Cannas, where they will have a mowed-around border.

Bougainvillea in Z8. "They" say it's not hardy here, so I thought, what's the harm in trying? Well, it comes back, nice and spiky, but doesn't bloom. As it is planted at the base of one of the clothesline poles, I'm sure the now 4-year-old root system is massive, likely entwined with the concrete at the base of that pole (which it can't "climb" by itself.) No blooms, I don't put giant thorns in the compost. Total oops, a complete loss so far, unless you count occasional epidermal gouges as some kind of bonus, and the fact that last year, moonflower vine found Bougainvillea to be a fine vector for its' climb to the top of the pole, down the lines... (For those who might wonder, no, it didn't shade the Boug so much that THAT's what prevented any blooms...)

This is a picture of a fully grown Japanese maple the former homeowners planted right next to the front porch. When we bought the place, it completely covered the front of the house. People would not go to the front entrance - they would come to the side and knock on the garage door! Pruning it would not have done any good, so alas, it had to go. The former owners probably spent a decent chunk of change when they bought it, but then they completely destroyed its value by planting waaaaay too close to the house.

{{!gwi}}