The plant thugs of our garden.

That IS strange!
Perhaps if you show her a photo of mine, she won't want to!!
I do like it though and it is nice as a cut flower.

At this time of year I love the thugs. So many of my favourite plants have finished flowering.

I quite like many of your thugs, Chris … sorry, particularly
Japanese Anemones, though I have realised that the white ones have better manners than the pinks! I’ve had to take out a thuggish Geranium Ann Folkard which was smothering everything within reach …

one of the tall white asters is doing the rampaging thing as is Saponaria. Jap anemones are putting on a good show too. [rampant may well be the correct term though.
I have a clematis that has turned out to be the wild travelling Joy and a certain thug.
i have really enjoyed this blog. thank you.

I am getting a lot of comfort from your comments! It was helpful to hear of the geranium that smothers everything around it and the adventurous clematis that is having a bit of a fling!!

I know where you're coming from, Rose! I have no problem with crocosmia but I expect your soil is not as dry as mine. I would like it to grow better. Some geraniums are go-ers for me, as are some campanulas which seed all over. Oh, and vinca, but that was my fault for plantig it in the first place! Some potentillas, too. I think it's Helen Jane. I don't think you're alone..

The Crocosmia in my front border has gone absolutely crazy this year, my own fault as I thinned it out a lot and it has repaid me in full, in the back garden it doesn't spread as fast, I have a pink spreading geranium that is most definitely a thug but looks lovely in the springtime, definitely one to keep under control, I pull loads of that out every year, I have two sorts of Campanula, one is very refined and stays in a nice neat mound, the other climbs and spreads everywhere it can, I wait until the flowers go over then give it the Chelsea Chop, everything is reaching for the sky here except me, think its because they were all looking for the light during all the drab, grey days, I keep looking at my shrubs and thinking that some need a good pruning, the thing is, I do know from experience that they will reward me by growing twice as fast and also double in size...Oh the joys of gardening...x

Anget you are lucky not to have a problem with crocosmia but vinca does spread quickly! I like the flowers on it though.
Now Lincslass you sound to be in much the same state as I am!!!
Is that why the crocosmia has gone mad because I tried to thin it out? Now I know where I went wrong!! We also have the same pink geranium as you do! It grew into a huge circle but we had to leave it as it did look pretty!
I agree with you about plants reaching up to the light - that explains a lot!

I am pleased it's not just me Chris! My anemones which were here before me have completely taken over in a border round a big cherry tree. Last year I tried to get a lot of them out , finding shrubs and plants under them all, but they came back increasing their numbers!
So, a big job for the Autumn!
I also have an enormous grass which has got wider and wider! Although it's such a colourful grass, I will have to be stern with myself and dig it out! It is in the gravel in the front inbetween three roses but before long, it will be covering these up!

Chris, I did smile at the yellow Clematis tangutica as mine spread through so many shrubs last year that I threatened to remove it. It hasn't appeared this year and when I got on my hands and knees to look for it - not a sign of growth - just a brown woody stump!

Chris, I have a Japanese anemone and jings - it has been planted in a sleeper bed for a few years and I usually get one or two flowers! Plus the foliage -this year I have 4 leaves!!!!! I would like it to spread and grow a little bit more!!!!! I took a geranium Rozanne out this year as I’d had it in the garden for so many years…it had become rampant and despite an abundance of flowers, it was quite a bit straggly. I had planted mint up on the bund hill- trying to get it to be a little rampant up there would be quite good - but, weirdly, it’s taking its time!
I have to agree, the plants we want to grow and spread well seem to take absolutely ages or end up withering!!!!

I have a one plant that turns into a bit of a thug every summer - Tradescantia fluminensis. It is quite a small plant that has lovely 3 petalled flowers for months on end. It has very bright, shiny leaves but it grows & grows & ... It also seeds freely even though I never seem to see the seeds on the plants! It will stand up to the winter frosts even if it does die back like a herbaceous perennial!

I have a plant in our living room near the balcony door & this evening I was watching the sunlight coming through the balcony windows - in site of the tomato plants that would hug all the sunlight to themselves - playing on the leaves of the plant! But it won't flower indoors! Neither for that matter will my Tradescantia zebrina.

I'll post a picture of the plant.

Rose, yet another person struggling with Japanese anemones! They really do seem to be a bit of a nuisance don't they?!

Shirley, what a shame you can't tell me what exactly happened to your Tangutika - if you had been able to, I could arrange for the very same thing to happen to mine!!

Kate I am amazed your anemones are behaving in this sulky manner! I would happily send you some of mine but wouldn't get them in the post! I have heard that the geranium Rozanne can become invasive which is a shame. I too struggle to get mint to grow and spread itself!

Balcony please do post a picture of your Tradescantia. We used to have one and ours grew really well but then suddenly seemed to give up and looked rather straggly. Yours sounds lovely.

Chris, that's so funny! When the builders erected the new garden fence panels I asked them to be aware of the plant, even covered it over with an upturned hanging basket (they must have thought I was a crazy old lady!) so I can't blame them for its demise!

I'm sorry to hear about your thugs, and although they are rather pretty they can be a nuisance.
I have been keeping my Anemonies in pots, and have decided to put a few more things in pots as well. In that way I can still see them without them causing problems.
The trouble is you have to find somewhere to put them and you have to water them.