SIX PLANT MISTAKES

Most of Six on Saturday is about achievements in the garden, much loved plants or ways of doing things. But while I was down on my hands and knees on Thursday evening, pulling weeds out of a gravel path, I realised that some of them were our plant mistakes - plants we should never have introduced to the garden.
So I am using this week's six on Saturday  as a warning - do not introduce these plants to your garden, as you will come to regret it, just as I have.

1 Mimulus guttata

You can buy this *pretty yellow-flowered Mimulus (although I think the taxonomists have been at it again and changed the name to Erythranthe guttata) but it is also endemic in the wild and we obtained a few little bits from alongside a Northumberland stream where it looked lovely in the field. Planted in the shallows of our pond it loved life and seeded around - and around and around and around. It has clinging roots so that when you pull it up, it breaks, leaving bits to sprout again.
DONT PLANT IT.

2.  Lysimachia ciliata 'FIRECRACKER'

I was looking for plants with interesting coloured leves when I found this at a garden centre with nice little contrasting bright yellow flowers. it looked nice the first year, then the following year its spreading roots meant it came up all over the bed and in the path and between the edging stones. It may have an RHS Award of Garden Merit, but as far as I'm concerned it has no merit. 
DON'T PLANT IT. 

3. Bamboo - Semiarundinaria fastuosa

 We chose this bamboo for the 'exotic' part of our garden as it grows tall and was said not to be one that runs. To quote one supplier: "it remains fairly compact around the base with just occasionally straying rhizomes from the main clump that can be easily controlled."
Easily controlled! Huh! It can run like Usain Bolt. The running roots are  built just like the canes themselves and your spade will glance or bounce off them. Enough was enough when an arrow-sharp runner pierced the liner of our pond - fortunately a fraction above water level. In a massive excavation it was dug up and confined to a very strong plastic tub  but I fear it may be escaping, so that will be dug up to and it is destined for the bonfire.
DON'T PLANT IT.

4. Carex pendula

 The pendulous sedge seemed like a good idea for a marginal pond plant. with its tall flower heads to wave in the breeze. But later they wave seeds all over the place - thousands and thousands of them. And being a British native plant, when they get into damp soil, they love it.
The RHS website now says: "It seeds freely and can become a troublesome weed in damp gardens."  It certainly can and the rest of the RHS entry concentrates on how to control it.
DON'T PLANT IT.

5. Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae

I liked this in my neighbour's garden and other places where i've seen it under trees - after all it is the wood spurge. So I planted it in a shady corner and it was happy there for a few years until it decided to explore the garden and began to pop up all over the place. Despite its wandering habit, I like its dark green evergreen leaves and lime green flowers in spring - but my OH dislikes it intensely. So it will have to go.
DON'T PLANT IT.

6. Phalaris arundinacea var. picta

I should have known better! Gardeners garters (why is it called that?).We'll have just a little bit, we said, out of my father-in-law's garden, and keep it constrained in a pot in the pond, where it will look nice.
Of course, it escaped and is now a nasty big clump preparing to take over the pond (once the pendulous sedge has gone). So it is destined for the bonfire too, as I'm not sure the council's composting process will kill it.
DON'T PLANT IT.

Those are six of my mistakes, all currently growing within a few yards of each other, and about to be disposed of. What plants have you regretted allowing into your garden?