What is one gardening mistake you made and won’t do again?

[CherishedFowlGuardian]

Hi everyone,

I keep hearing that cacti and succulents are easy to grow. But I don’t get it—I’ve lost every cactus I tried to grow. Some rotted, some dried out.

I guess my mistake was thinking they would be easy.

What about you? What is one gardening mistake you made and won’t do again? It could be about a plant, a tool, or anything else.

I’d love to hear your stories. Also, if you have any tips to help me keep my cacti alive, please share!

 

[flowerbug]

Hi everyone,

I keep hearing that cacti and succulents are easy to grow. But I don’t get it—I’ve lost every cactus I tried to grow. Some rotted, some dried out.

I guess my mistake was thinking they would be easy.

some of them can be harder than others.

the spikes are rather dangerous on some of them.

can you describe what you did with them? did you water them once in a while? did they get enough light? did you repot them once in a while? is your water salty? did you ever fertilize? did they freeze? etc. the more details you provide the better it is for us to help or figure out what is going on.

it sounds like (from your words) that you perhaps treated all of them the same when some may need a bit different treatment than others. taking time to observe and if needed keeping notes about each one might help.

What about you? What is one gardening mistake you made and won’t do again? It could be about a plant, a tool, or anything else.

using a blue wildflower seed mix which contained some speedwells and forget-me-nots. those are rather not what some people would want in more formal gardens and they're very hard to get rid of once spread around and established.

a few other plants i regret (Creeping Jenny where i have them now). some i have managed to eradicate (ground ivy and another few mints, some grasses, etc.). some i have not (poison ivy and wild grape vines).

I’d love to hear your stories. Also, if you have any tips to help me keep my cacti alive, please share!

sometimes it just takes learning and experience... i started with houseplants that were easy to take care of (spider plants, snake plants, english ivy, etc.) and a few cactus.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Filling our home made raised beds (4') with other stuff like potting soil, and junk. I shoulda ordered plain old dirt.

 

[ducks4you]

In my war against burdock, I rented this machine that mowed them down.
Great!
I didn't clean them up and created a small Forest of them the next year!!!

 

[Phaedra]

spider plants

Same here, and now I have endless daughter plants
I should use them as free take-away for cafe customers!

 

[flowerbug]

Same here, and now I have endless daughter plants
I should use them as free take-away for cafe customers!

"The first one is free!"

 

[Dahlia]

Hi everyone,

I keep hearing that cacti and succulents are easy to grow. But I don’t get it—I’ve lost every cactus I tried to grow. Some rotted, some dried out.

I guess my mistake was thinking they would be easy.

What about you? What is one gardening mistake you made and won’t do again? It could be about a plant, a tool, or anything else.

I’d love to hear your stories. Also, if you have any tips to help me keep my cacti alive, please share!

My story was don't try to grow chives if you have a really bad slug problem. The chives I plantrd grew to be a quarter inch tall and then one night the slugs came through and mowed them down!

 

[Finnie]

I will never plant cut leaf rudbeckia again! Saw it at Lowe’s one year and since I love black eyed Susans, I got 3. These are NOT the kind of black eyed Susans anybody wants! Terribly terribly invasive and they form a tall thick dense hedge.

At first I thought they were great. Tall, made kind of a privacy hedge, had lots of nice small but dramatic yellow flowers when they bloomed. But I had planted them on the east side of a fence and since the wind comes from the west, they got trained to bow over eastward and that didn’t look good. So I dug them up (or so I thought) and transplanted them to the west side of a different fence the following year and also along the south side of the house. (3 plants had turned into a bonanza of more plants.)

Big big mistake. Now I had 3 long stretches of giant thick overgrown mess. And those ones on the west side of the fence? Sure, the fence held them up. Until they migrated through the fence and then they bowed over and made it impossible to get within 5 feet of the fence for mowing.

They spread from the roots, they drop seed, and any pieces you chop down and don’t pick up root and form new jungles. The birds help spread them too. After a couple of years when I realized they were a problem, I had quite a job removing them. And I don’t think I will ever truly be rid of them. I now feel the same way about them as I do bind weed.