Garden Pet Peeves

For our September 2012 Washington Gardener Magazine Reader Contest, we asked: "What is Your Gardening Pet Peeve?" We selected randomly among the entries and the following individuals each one a set of two passes each (prize value $20+) to the upcoming DC Green Festival this week at the Washington Convention Center. Washington Gardener Magazine will be there with a booth and Editor Kathy Jentz will be hosting a talk on Cool Season Edibles on Sunday at 3pm.

Congratulations to the Winners:

~ Susi Baranano of Washington DC

~ Carrie Biggs-Adams of Colmar Manor, MD

~ Pam De Pena of Potomac Falls, VA

~ Patricia van Bergen of Boyds, MD

~ Courtney Greenley of Washington, DC

~ Sarah Urdaneta of Berwyn Heights, MD

~ Sheeba Tom of Hyattsville, MD

~ Madeline Caliendo of  Washington, DC

And now for the Gardening Pet Peeves:

I thought colored mulch was bad, that is until I saw someone in our neighborhood paint rocks (4") a bright blue to simulate a steam running through their front yard. They then painted white accents on some of the rocks, so then it was a "rushing" water....so tacky!!!!

~ Blake Schreck

By far, my biggest gardening pet peeve in the garden is the pesky POKE WEED. They grow fast and large, and their taproots are impossible to completely remove. The bane of my woodland garden, for sure.
~ Pam De Pena.

Melon thieves and vandals.

~ Ellen C. McBarnette

 

Oh easy - disappearing ink on variety labels!!!

~ Pablo Elliott

   My pet peeve is rabbits.  I have cats (2 my own) wander through my garden but they only nibble on the grass.  I have gardened in the Washington area for 50 years and I never thought rabbits would be a problem - I have always thought of them as taking a few things from Mr. MacGregor's garden!  Yet here they are munching on my tender hostas, cutting down new shoots from my blueberry bushes like they were lettuce, and being told that they will munch through anything except wire fencing!
   Since they are becoming more prolific, I have found more information on them, and seem to have found that a mesh fence will keep them out, as long as it's about 2 feet high and staked into the ground.
~ Cindy Bertaut

My garden pet peeve is WEEDS!! While the rest of my garden might be struggling due to too much or too little rain, high humidity or drying winds, and various pest and diseases, the weeds are always there, growing strong and taunting me so that if I neglect my garden for even a week, they will take over. The worst of the weeds is what I call the "Invasive Vine Cocktail", a discouraging mix of Oriental bittersweet, catbrier, Japanese honeysuckle, English ivy and various other non-natives, that are ready to pounce and smother my garden no matter how often I beat them back.

~ Sarah Urdaneta

My gardening pet peeve is when gardeners buy plants (in pots) and never transplant them into the ground. They leave them in the pots and not water them. I assume they intend to plant them or forget or get too busy or whatever. The plants eventually die in the pot.

~ Susi Baranano

Gardening Pet Peeve?  Weeding!  Especially when you have roommates that have different opinions on what a "weed" is.  

~ Courtney Greenley

My "Pet Peeve" has to do with weeds in my garden.  If my beloved plants only grew so vigorously I would be a very happy gardener!  It seems in my garden that weeding is a never ending task.  As soon as I think I've got them all up, another appears.  Perhaps its best to change my attitude about what plants are weeds!  LOL.

~ Madeline Caliendo

It pains me to write this, but my pet gardening peeve is my family.  I like to think that I've worked miracles on a site that is very large and very shady by creatively converting the front yard and lawn, the only sunny spot, into a wonderful mix of flowers, shrubs and vegetables.  I built a retaining wall using broken concrete to level out the slope, topped it with rose bushes, and placed the vegetable planters behind them so the tomato vines aren't visible from the street which would offend the neighbors.   I am currently planting a hedge of deer resistant shrubs and perennials along the street edge of the front yard, behind which I will string deer fencing to keep them out.  I think it's beautiful--the rest of my family hates it!  They want grass and conformity.  As for the large and shady backyard, I am creating small garden rooms, starting nearest the house and eventually to work further out (where it is currently a tangled mess).  I love doing this, too, and have been given full reign.  But my family asks why I can't abandon the front and return it to its former lawn glory.  My peeve:  they don't understand why a gardener might want some SUN, too!  
~ Alexa P Freeman

At farmers market when I see non seasonal fruits/vegetable with stickers mentioning "Product of Brazil/Mexico ...." we know all fruits and vegetable grow in farms, I don't get what does a local farmers market means when i see this, we can get the same in the store too Why people come to farmers market, to buy the local produce !!!
~ Raja Mohan

My Gardening Pet Peeve is Poison Ivy - How can this stuff shape shift in my yard and get me time after time?  I have just finished my THIRD course of Prednisone so far this year.  I own every concievable potion to keep from getting exposed, garden in laytex gloves, wash in TechNu and get it again.
   I can't seem to recognize it in the yard, can't wash it off me fast enough, and can't seem to develop enough immunity to it to go out and pull weeds in the yard without getting another case of POISON IVY - yes it is my gardening pet peeve. And no I did not grow up here, but I knew its cousin poison oak in California.
~ Carrie Biggs-Adams

My gardening pet peeve is toxic fertilizers; it is an oxymoron, IMO.

~ Patricia van Bergen

It looks like weeds are the clear pet peeve champions.
And your editor's gardening pet peeves? Where do I begin?
- Plant pots with no (or too small) drainage holes forcing you to get out the drill and risky personal injury.
- Inadequate plant labeling or missing labels. List if it is an aggressive spreader and of the plant's full, mature size (not just size in 5-8 years)!
- Not enough sunlight hours in the day this time of year.
- Jerky mockingbirds.
- Garden tools that are green or brown, please make them with brightly colored handles.
And, oh so many more, but I'll stop there...

So what are YOUR gardening pet peeves?