While I do have plants on my whitelist, to obtain, I also have plants on my blacklist, to remove or forbid from my garden.
Thornless Blackberry has now migrated to my blacklist, on account of bearing the no-good signs of rust. It's leaves are all purple and underneath bright yellow pustules of rust are showing. Meh. It probably wouldn't fruit well anyway..as it's an american hybrid bred to be thornless, not juicy.
So, it's goodbye Blackberry.
Others on the list I'm not so fond of include...due to being invasive or disease ridden or thorny:
Bindweed
Creeping Buttercup
Flower Carpet Rose
Privet
Onehunga Weed
Paspalum grass
Plantain
Thistle
Wild Ginger
Gorse*
*thankfully not in my garden.
It is funny, when I tell people I garden the non-gardeners always ask me if I want to do theirs. Silly question, of course not! Do your own! How would I know what a weed in your garden is and what plants you like to grow, I don't live there.
I don't know. Besides if I do other people's gardens, that just means they passing the buck to me when everyone knows gardening is a lifetimes work that needs regular doing. If I garden for other people, do I still have a right to the harvest? Gardening is a personal thing, or a community thing. I was thinking bout this lately and thinking it just might be the attitude of those who cut down christmas trees and put them in their house for one day in summer.
And also, when will I get time to care for my own if I'm off doing other peoples? They may as well bequeath me their land. It could be they don't even HAVE a garden, they just want someone to kill their weeds for them, then a few months later down the track, because they haven't planted anything, all the weeds come back. Waste of time.
I talked with some professional gardeners 'Professional' meaning they get paid I suppose, and their clients tend to be wealthy high maintenance people who don't want to lift a finger, to have a garden to show off to their other wealthy friends. They want a garden but they don't want to look after it once it's all planted. On the other end of the scale others want some kind of landscaping effect, which is low maintenance, meaning a lawn, one or two flaxes, and a line of cabbage trees. The drive thru Pak 'n Save garden.
I decided I'm not going down that pathway. If you follow the yellow brick road, all you do is go round and round in circles.
