Acer palmatum, RIP

So far this year I've managed to kill two Japanese maples, a cyclamen and quite possibly some Japanese painted ferns. Not deliberately you understand, just unhappy accidents, forgetfulness and downright plant abuse.

Oh, and some lamb's ears, which are virtually indestructible, so I must get extra points for them.

Come on guys, make me feel better and tell me what specimens you've had to resign to the compost heap so far in 2008.

Comments

[Matron]

I tried growing a pineapple top last year. It rooted well and had a short life..didn't survive the Winter. Will have to try another one - to make Bob Flowerdew proud of me!!

[easygardener]

I've lost my salvia cuttings....again. I can't keep these plants no matter how hard I try. We just don't get on.

[Jeremy]

Two Japanese maples? I'd kill just to be able to afford one. Are they easy to propagate?

[Lisa]

I killed lambs ears last year, so I feel better to know I am not alone.
I don't think I've lost anything yet this year despite trying to kill an umbrella tree all winter. It refused to die but became compost.

[Mrs Be]

It's not the killling things off, it's more not getting them to grow in the first place that's bothering me.

Still, nice to know professionals make mistakes sometimes!

[Almost Mrs Average]

I've been told that no one can kill an orchid, yet I'm on my second in as many years. Shameful I know.

[Jenny]

I recently put my four-year-old mother-of-millions in the compost heap. Poor thing was trying to grow roots all along its stem. (Luckily, it made a couple of babies before it died.) The sage plant I put in the pot that killed my chives plant last year is--surprise!--also dead.

I also killed a bunch of seedlings I grew in pots just to see what they would look like if/when they came up outdoors. Does that count?

[emma t]

I have a weird inability to kill some of the things in my garden that I would really, really like to die. For example, a tree peony which is totally in the wrong place and which i therefore would happily sacrifice - I mean, it's not going to transplant is it? - but still it goes on making the effort.

And in October I put a big houseplant outside which had belonged to my ex - he left it, when he left - and it has survived snow and everything! It's a philodendron selloum! It's supposed to live in Brazil!

[Julian]

If you don't mind another gloater... I cut to the ground and moved an Akebia quinata, chocolate vine, from a reasonable spot to the shallow, virtually sterile dust under a conifer. And it is coming into leaf. Though, this season, I will mostly be killing seedlings in droves. Transplant that tree peony, Emma - sounds like you have the gift. Mind you, after watching the first instalment of 'Pushing Daisies' on telly last week, maybe the first touch revives, but the second kills for good.

[emma t]

I hope I didn't sound gloaty. I am rubbish and fatal to all kinds of plant activity - it just makes me frustrated that things I want to live don't, and things I wouldn't mind dying don't either. I don't even bother sowing seeds these days. It's too depressing to see them all coming up so cheerfully and then to watch them slowly get eaten or wither or whatever. I am hopeless at seeds. Good at cuttings... crap at seeds, houseplants, any kind of herbaceous perennial. Good at anything which requires fleece to get through a winter. Maybe I just sympathise more with plants which like to be warm and cosy, because that's exactly what I'm like.

[tina]

l over watered my jack pine and know all is see is brown leaves . l did some prunning yersteday .

[tina]

Just along day and cannot get my words right. l over watered my jack pine and all l see is brown leaves.

[Natalie El-Barrawi]

I thought I had swamped my garlic last year by planting it through cardboard over couch grass the lazy way, but I've dug up one huge round clove per plant. Do you think it's still edible even though bigger than a golf-ball?
I've given up with indoor plants I think they start to die on the journey home.

[Molly]

I'll see your lambs ears and raise you a bunch of hollyhocks. I dug the clumps out of a bed I was overhauling and forgot to replant them elsewhere.
Also a nice vibernum tinus that I sorta bumped into with the stringtrimmer las summer gave up the ghost over the winter.

[Emily]

I've had the most difficulty with those types of maples. I'm not sure why. :/

[Lisa]

Supposedly Purple Coneflowers (Echinacea) are easy to grow but I can't keep one alive for anything. They either die outright or linger on looking like they want to die for a few months before finally fading away.

[Julian]

I didn't mean that, Emma! I think all these green things more or less make up their own minds a lot of the time, but it's hard not to be pleased when something doesn't peg out. I think I have done for a maple, by the way. It's been moved around a bit, but did best in a big pot (it's only 2' tall) before the latest move to a textbook spot finished it off. The finer-leaved ones burn in the wind very easily. The more shelter they get, not excluding indirect light, the better, it seems. The prairie plants like echinacea probably find our gardens too rich a lot of the time, especially if you're adding them to a vegetable plot. I know what you mean about their fading away.

[Liz]

I haven't had any major casualties this year but it's so cold that all the seeds I've planted have been reluctant to germinate. Very frustrating.

[naoto]

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so,
I linked your blog thank you.

If allowed ,Please link this my blog written Japanese.

[adekun]

I have a irritating motherinlaw japonica that I sometimes wonder would benefit the same treatment.

[Nomanda]

Somebody ought to tie my hands behind my back when things start growing after winter. I'm an over enthusiastic weeder and shouldn't be let loose with the weedkiller spray!
My other problem is that the plants that I plant never seem to like the spot that I've chosen for them and appear in places where I do not expect them to be. So much for my carefully planned lay-out and colour scheme!

[Linda]

Not me, but the sister of a friend of mine has managed to kill all her bamboo. Quite an achievement!

[margaret]

I don't think I killed them here in my New England garden, but that they committed suicide while in my care. (Is that my fault, anyhow?) Heucheras--it is heucheras I am talking about. Up and out of the ground they leapt, and froze to death in the process. Tell me I am off the hook and that they did it to themselves...

[Rach]

I had a whole row of lovely pea seedlings munched by slugs. This was very distressing. Happily the courgette seedlings I replaced them with have survived. So far.