I find anything with pastel blooms boring, or perhaps dismal is a better word. Same with white blooms, exceptions being white crocus with yellow centers, daisies, and snowdrops. All winter long the world is covered in white, so I take advantage of our short summers to fill the green landscape with as many bright, vibrant colors as possible. I especially love a mix of red, fucshia, orange and purple. (The sugar maples take over my decorating efforts come autumn.)

Conversely I'm not fond of plants with foliage in any color other than green. Go figure! This makes no sense to me either.

Lilacs would not be on my "boring list," even the white ones. I love lilacs, although I definitely prefer the purple and lavender blooms. I would never tire of lilacs, the more the better.

Hostas are not a plant I care for.

I love Iris but have never grown the bearded ones. With my luck I stick to the hardy arctic variety and the older non-bearded tougher varieties. I love to see bearded iris in gardens belonging to more capable gardeners.

But to each their own. I know there are many out there who care for and love the plants that don't appeal to me personally. Variety is the spice of life as they say.

So funny!! I find lots of plants boring (autumn joy sedums and the like, salvia, hollies, I could go on) - I thought because it seems i see them everywhere but the same is not true for other plants I see everywhere. Hydrangea will always have a special place in my heart, and that along with echinacea and rudbeckia are what I consider "classic" summer flowers in NE gardens. (Classic - not boring. haha)

But I have a combo of everything mentioned so far!! I have the ubiquitous echinacea (though, tomato soup, to mix things up) and a couple of grasses, plus hosta in my shady areas...and lots of pastel flowers! (though mixed with vibrant red and purple and orange) ... so funny how different everyone's tastes can be. :)

Regarding everyone's differing tastes in plants, I guess the French got it right.........."Vive la difference!" although I'm pretty sure they weren't talking about gardening! LOL!

Yes, interesting. I agree that Some common plants seem boring to me (for example, orange daylilies), while others will always be fabulous to me (agree with the example of hydrangea). Plus, it varies from year to year. I almost pulled out all of my old generic daylilies last year, but didn't get to it before bloom, and then sort of fell in love with them again. Go figure.

I guess annuals get to be the most boring to me, because they just keep going without changing much over the summer. But, of course, that's why they can be such a help to brighten up a spot!

But really, they are all sort of fascinating!

A lot of people thing gardening in general and plants specifically are boring. Those people tend not to be on this forum, though, for some strange (?) reason.

I'm of the right plant, right place philosophy. Most plants look good to me in certain situations, but may look awful in others. For instance, planting a clematis to grow up through the lilac during its non-flowering phase really is a nice addition and provides support for the clematis as well as a longer season flowers for the lilac. Spirea stranded in the middle of a sea of mulch is boring, but nestled among plants with varied colors and textures, it can be quite nice. A row of overgrown yucca, yew or any other plant crammed against a foundation and then whacked back willy nilly in an effort to make it fit long after it has outgrown its space is boring, though any of those plants can be beautiful in other settings. (I have memories of a magical field in the Colorado with dried grass and yucca covered in frost and catching early morning sun.)

I cringe at abused plants (even ones I have inadvertently tortured) that are half alive, but that's not the same as boredom.

For me, hostas, petunias, pansies, and daylilies. I inherited tiger lilies in this garden that have grown amuck, and I have never liked tiger lilies. That dislike seeped into other daylilies, but my garden also has bright yellow daylilies, and now their cheeriness is opening my mind to other daylilies. But never tigers.

I still dislike pansies because of their overuse in the winter in the south, but I am also trying to open up my mind. At first I turned my nose up at violas as being tooo pansy-ish, but I now find violas/johnny-jump-ups to be so cute and a must-have. But, still no bigger pansies for me.

The hosta dislike started because it seemed to be the only shade plant I saw in every yard. But, then I saw one of those HUUUUUUUUUGE hostas, Sum and Substance or a similar, and that was a great hosta. See? That's changing, too!

Sounds like I have a recurring theme of overuse here, but some over-used plants I can't get enough of, like azaleas (in the south) and daisies. Phlox subulata is everywhere up here and I love it. Weird how things strike us, but it's awfully nice to know that our opinions change and grow as we do! And, I agree with nhbabs in that sometimes you just need to see a plant in a great setting to see how wonderful it can be. I appreciate those gardeners that can do that and I look forward to learning how to do it myself.

I agree with babs too re: the setting...I think why I dislike spirea is because I've always seen it in a sea of mulch! I think that IS the problem!

Orange daylilies can be boring. And yet I have a clump given to me by my grandmother YEARS ago that blooms next to the oak leaf hydrangea. So, with the creamy white flowers as a background, they look pretty good. Very old-fashioned but it works!

Bill, how pretty is THAT? I'm not very partial to my orange daylilies, but if they were like yours I wouldn't mind them either. Plus there's lovely dark pink (roses?) to add even more color. I love orange + pink.

Yews. YAWN. I just cut mind down and have been getting whiplash driving around trying to find ideas for what to replace them with. Everyone else has ... YEWS! Ugh, so boring. Other than that, I'm still new enough to this that other plants aren't boring to me. Except, I guess, Lily of the Valley and Vinca Minor, which drive me so crazy on my property I just hate them.

That is a very pretty combo. I like the orange daylilies in some settings, like along a stone wall. But there are tens of thousands of registered daylilies - so people could get a little creative and plant a few others besides Hemerocallis fulva and Stella d'oro.

And yes, some plants are boring, but probably because they are way over-used in the landscape. Although the Forsythia bloomed fabulously this Spring, at the same time I realized that it was planted EVERYWHERE. Old ones, new ones, rows of them. Along with those poofy purple Azaleas and Callery pears. It made me wonder if the nurseries sell anything else?

Alice,
Yes those are roses. A very old plant that my mother gave to my grandmother for mother's day maybe 50+ years ago. My grandma had no place for it so she planted it here and saw it whenever she visited. I have no idea what kind it is.

Terren,

I have winter jasmine, that sort of resembles forsythia, but much earlier (sometimes Dec. or Jan.) and not quite so intense. Another very nice small tree is Laburnum (Golden Chain Tree) that I think is underutilized here. You see them all over England. They grow more or less upright, which is nice for smaller spaces, bloom a little after all the typical spring flush (Crabapples, pears, dogwoods, cherries etc.) and they are yellow for a change from pink and/or white. Nice fragrance, too.

I like my camellias, instead of run-of-the-mill azaleas too.

Bill

If it's in someone ELSE's yard (ie: they got it at WM/the local nursery, etc with everyone else), I find it boring. I don't like to garden with the same things that everyone else has, and will seek out other sources to get different things, or different varieties of things that aren't found locally.

Having said that, I do like some of the standards, and they are staples in my garden: Marigolds & Zinnias & Ruds.

Hostas/Daylilies/Irises: Again, if they are not the same as everyone else has, or what's being sold at the big box stores, I'm all over it. (Bill, are your irises planted too deep?)

Several people here mentioned pastels- they only bore me because I have a huge yard/wide open spaces, and pastels get lost/unnoticed. Gimme the brights & bright-whites.

Grasses- you can keep them all.
Echs- yep, boring, but the birds like 'em, so they stay.
Lilacs- I live for that 2 weeks.
Petunias- boring, but pretty.

I'm sure there are others, but I suppose it would be fair to say that flowers in a garden are like instruments in an orchestra: individually they might not make a very big impact, but put them all together, and the harmony is simple splendor!

And my hats off to developers everywhere for building Mc-Mansions that have the most atrocious and boring landscaping I have ever seen. How about a boring arborvitae in each corner, along with a few straggly pjm's, and I almost forgot, must have two Alberta Spruce framing the doorway. This kind of thoughtless work by developers has given me an aversion to the above mentioned plants!

The irises are at least 14 years old, and have spread from a single fan/rhizome each to at least 6 each. I can see the rhizomes. I will try to move them and if that doesn't work, out they go to make room for something else. Maybe a Windmill Palm. THAT would get noticed! LOL!

And it's all too true that the developers and commercial landscapers seldom do anything inspiring. Same old same old. That's why I like to push the limits and to seek out unusual stuff.

Not many people around here trying hardy varieties of palms, yuccas, cacti, camellias, gardenias, jasmines, clerodendron, orchids, figs, eucalyptus, araucaria.... I could go on. Where's the pioneering spirit? So sure I've killed my share of things, but then how do we learn? And as I always say the plants can't read hardiness zone maps. So give something a try. Forget what the books say........they can always be edited and rewritten! And if I fail it's just a little more compost!

Bill, very nice combination with the Oakleaf. Your post has got me thinking about whether I find some p*lants boring. I suppose so, but I think I fall in line with Babs' suggestion that a plant that is used in a creative way that is h*ealthy and vigorous is interesting to me, even when it is not my favorite. I don't mind common p*lants and started out with some of them. I do have to agree that when you see one on every corner, you do grow tired of them. Stella D'Or Daylily is one that I've lost interest in. I'm trying to come up with another example and finding it hard. [g]

Another side of this question, is do you get bored with p*lants you used to enjoy. I find I do get bored with some of what I have grown for lots of years. I used to love Coreopsis 'Moonbeam' and I gave all of mine away last year. But someone on another forum posted a p*hoto recently using it in a different way and I liked it again. I used to have Cosmos growing in my full sun beds every year for about 10 years and all of a sudden, I just had to rip them all out. I had Four OClocks every year in containers. I enjoy the fragrance at night, but last year, I decided, that was it on the Four OClocks. So none this year. I think I will come back to them at some point. I was just ready for a change. I suppose things go in cycles. I don't think I will ever like Stella though. [g]

Ann,
I agree that we've been over-Stella-ed. ("STELLAAAAAAAA!!!!!!)
Having said that, I have one that does fit into a nice niche, and fills that spot. But you're right about going in cycles too. But now that I think more about it, I probably started this thread more to see what people are trying that's new, REALLY new and DIFFERENT. I don't see that enthusiasm for new things that the nurseries and growers would give us IF we asked more instead of "settling" for what they offer. Don't get me wrong, I do know that we have to have the tried and true things for the backbone of the garden, but we need a little kick in the pants now and then. What's new today may well be tomorrow's Stella! I mean even that ubiquitous Stella D'Oro had to be planted by SOMEBODY for the first time!!

LOL Hey, Marlon. [g]

I think you have more drive to have new and different than I do. I ripped out everything in my back*yard because it was old, overgrown and were full sun plants that were now in too much shade. So we started over again six years ago, so basically everything was new and different to me since then.

Still, I could very easily be searching the catalogs every year for something new and different, except that I've already gotten burned a few times with 'new' plants that failed to live up to expectations. I've grown to distrust the hype of hybridizers. I was dying for some different colored echinaceas and after buying expensive plants two years in a row that didn't survive the winter, I gave up on that.

I find things that others find boring, make me quite happy. Like Hollies, that someone mentioned are boring to them. I had a book out of the library by Beth Chatto about woodland gardens and she had some magnificent hollies and very attractive combinations with surrounding shrubs and perennials. Just loved them. I also always wanted to have hollies that I could harvest branches and berries for C*hristmas decorations every year. I was out today looking at the hollies in the yard and I like everything about them. The shiny healthy leaves, The berries just starting to form. The way they respond so well to tip pruning. The dependability and predictability. I feel happy just looking at them. lol

The other thought is that some of these plants that get overused and boring get that way for a reason. They are so easy to grow, so dependable to bloom, so healthy and pest free. If you are not always having success with things that you grow, then you try to look for things that will. Successfully growing anything is often exciting in and of itself. :-)

From my experience answering a question like this will mean you will totally change your mind about that plant at some point in the future. All of a sudden some garden magazine will have a clump of orange daylily by a stone wall and you will NEED to build a stone wall and get that daylily. No plant is boring...and really Hostas! There are so many really cool hostas and they all look very different.

jackie, it wouldn't be the first time that happened, but orange daylilies have a long wait to find themselves on my sh*opping list. [g] I am also surprised that Hostas could be boring, but on the other hand. I've been slow to add hostas to the g*arden. They have to really ring my bells to buy them. I didn't want hostas just because they were the thing to grow in the shade. I sincerely don't enjoy their flowers 90% of the time. Plain green hostas are very boring to me and some of the variegated ones are getting to that point. Gee, I just counted and I have 15 hostas now. I thought I had a couple. [g] What I am finding interesting is that the older they get and the larger they get, the more I like them.

G*ardening is so surprising at times too. I picked up a mini hosta somewhere and have lost the tag and the first two years it was boring to me and I wondered why I bought it. This year, all of a sudden, it is my favorite hosta I have and it really fits the place it's growing in. Hostas are another p*lant that are dependable and easy care and if you don't have slugs, they look good a lot of the time. Which comes back to if it will grow successfully, it can be exciting to someone.

Didn't I read a thread lately, that someone mentioned how g*ardens are one of the only things in life that get better with age? That's what I am discovering lately. Very little about g*ardening is boring to me, and the fact that you can change it all up if you don't like it. Add something here, take something out there, it's always changing.