Garden Monsters
Because I have a small yard and I like a lot of different plants, I've planted too many plants too close to one another. As these plants grow, that has begun to cause some conflicts. And, since my garden is only three years old, I'm anticipating that these will intensify in the future, as many of my small woody twigs grow into full-blown shrubs. Here are a few of the more egregious examples:
This is a Cheirolophus burchardii. Annie's Annuals says that it grows to "2-3 feet tall & wide," but mine is currently at 5' x 5' x 5' and shows no signs of stopping. If you look closely, you can see a poor 2-foot tall Illicium henryi in front of it. I imagine that the Illicium's ancestors, clinging to a cliff in western Sichuan, never anticipated having to contend with this giant from the beaches of Tenerife.
It looks like the Cheirolophus is about to bloom, so I'll soon see if it justifies its girth:
In my back yard, I randomly planted a hybrid marguerite daisy in an empty spot next to a small meiwa kumquat tree. I thought that the daisy would be a short-lived annual, but it didn't die this winter and is now beginning to overshadow the kumquat:
Finally, I knew that this Geranium maderense was supposed to get bigger than any other geranium, but somehow I didn't picture it completely swallowing up a box shrub. I've had to move the cactus in front of it a couple times, because it keeps on getting shaded by the huge geranium leaves:
This is a Cheirolophus burchardii. Annie's Annuals says that it grows to "2-3 feet tall & wide," but mine is currently at 5' x 5' x 5' and shows no signs of stopping. If you look closely, you can see a poor 2-foot tall Illicium henryi in front of it. I imagine that the Illicium's ancestors, clinging to a cliff in western Sichuan, never anticipated having to contend with this giant from the beaches of Tenerife.
It looks like the Cheirolophus is about to bloom, so I'll soon see if it justifies its girth:
In my back yard, I randomly planted a hybrid marguerite daisy in an empty spot next to a small meiwa kumquat tree. I thought that the daisy would be a short-lived annual, but it didn't die this winter and is now beginning to overshadow the kumquat:
Finally, I knew that this Geranium maderense was supposed to get bigger than any other geranium, but somehow I didn't picture it completely swallowing up a box shrub. I've had to move the cactus in front of it a couple times, because it keeps on getting shaded by the huge geranium leaves:
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