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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

A NOXIOUS WEED


You would think I had learnt by now to research my plants before buying. I once had a Hypericum (St John's wort) growing in my garden in St Louis. It was a lovely bush with yellow flowers and very mannerly. So I bought a packet of seeds and planted 4 plants in my English garden. They grew well but had very small leaves and no flowers and behaved like a rock garden plant growing and spilling over the wall. I was convinced that that packet must have had the wrong seeds. Determined to have this plant I bought another packet from another company. Same result. Only now did I do my research.
Hypericum perforatum is listed as a noxious weed in 20 countries. It spreads by rhizomes which are now taking over my garden. Believe me I have had this lesson before and I have a "right royal battle" on my hands to get rid of it.
and I quote:

"There is no gardener without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder"  Alfred Austin.

8 comments:

  1. Oh, but it is so very pretty. I was coveting a variety I saw on my East Coast trip this summer. Can it be contained by planting it in a pot with the bottom cut out?

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  2. It is pretty, and isn't a health cure of some kind? Maybe you can bottle it up and sell it!
    Aiyana

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  3. I might be inclined to like it better if it would just flower. It has been 3 years and nothing so far. I think I just have the wrong variety. n ancient times it was supposed to ward off evil.

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  4. I had some Hypericum prolificum shrubs, I think the variety was 'Sunburst' and they were very pretty. Bluish-green foliage, bright yellow flowers that turned a chocolate brown as the seeds formed. I loved them! But sadly they were attached by bagworms and died. Perhaps that's what you saw growing in St. Louis.

    I have some of this 'noxious weed', too, but have contained it to one spot. It has flowered, but it isn't that pretty even when it flowers! And it does spread...

    Carol, May Dreams Gardens

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  5. Oh - Evil St. John's Wort!! We had that stuff back home in the Northwest and it took over like nothing you have ever seen! It rivaled English Ivy in its invasiveness. Once those runners get in the ground, you will never get them out.It DID have these pretty yellow flowers on it all summer though...

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  6. I am going to do my best to get it out. I'm sure that's about as easy as the pink primrose which I have also been working on for years.

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  7. Oh, I remember when I did the same thing with Missouri primrose in my Wisconsin garden. It was small consolation that the primrose had spread densely enough to keep out the encroaching lawn. ;P

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  8. I had some in my garden when I arrived here. It bloomed last year and seems to be able to subsist without watering. I have not noticed it spreading and I've been here five years now. Perhaps it is an invasive in a more congenial environment but it's not my experience. I transplanted some to a flower bed and will watch carefully for signs of invasion as it's only been there two years.

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