Grower or what?

[Palustris]

As I have said on many occasions I do not like gardening that much. What I DO like is messing with plants, propagating, pricking out, potting on and such like. So, I would regard myself as a 'grower'.  However today and yesterday and probably tomorrow I will not be a grower rather a killer. I am in the process of weeding various parts of the garden. A job I confess I dislike intensely and one which a present is giving me a great deal of pain (but that is another story). Back to the main premise. I reckon that I have destroyed more plants today than I have grown over the last  year. WHY? Well many because they are classed as weeds by everybody. BUT, some of them I pulled out because they were merely growing in the wrong place. I could have replanted these elsewhere, but how many Doronicum does anyone want?
'Tis a strange way to spend one's time, killing things!

[ideasguy]

I always have mixed feelings when I see plants for sale which I pull up in abundance or divide and throw away so many unwanted chunks in spring - e.g. Alchemilla mollis seedlings.
I suppose the answer is to join a plant society and share these things.

Now Dorinicum is something which I cant keep more that 2 years. Ive just purchased and planted two D. 'Little Leo'. The last one flowered profusely in its second year, then promptly died!
What variety is that one which is spreading over your garden Eric?

[Palustris]

No idea George, it has been here for 16 years and seeds itself all over the place. Straight D. orientale( caucasicum) would be my guess. I like the plant and it flowers very early, but ............
I was also pulling up Allium seedlings too, probably A. karatviense as that seems to be a seed weed for us.
It is just one of those thoughts which flickered through what passes for a brain these days. As a 'gardemer' (sniff!) most of us would regard ourselves as friends of the environment, yet we spend more time adjusting it to suit ourselves than people who do not have any interest in 'gardening'.
While this thought was passing on its fleeting path it struck me that the vast majority of plants in my garden are not even native to the British Isles. Strange to be removing native plants so that foreigners can survive.

[ideasguy]

You must have a a very nice climate or micro climate in your garden Eric, being able to grow so many non-native plants!

Yes we do upset nature quite a bit. Snails, worms, aphids, ants, caterpillars, beetles etc etc.
In return we do give the bees a source of nectar, and grow plants to attract butterflies, flies, etc etc.
The number of gardeners appears to be dwindling in this day and age, I suspect, so maybe nature will have a chance to recover I know it doesn't take my garden to revert to nature!! Weeding is a continual battle. Personally I find it therapeutic, as my son described it on his one and only weeding session when we went a-gardening. I just wish there wasn't so much of it!

[Palustris]

I'll bet that if you look at the plants in your garden a majority of them are not natives, even Snowdrops are foreigners.

[ideasguy]

Yes indeed Eric - Chrinodendron hookerianum from Chile and Cytisus battandieri from Morocco immediately come to mind.