Just been thinking about this as a customer has bought 20 david austen roses for me to plant. I dont like roses because of the thorns, diseases they get and the lack of interest when they are not in flower. So i dont promote their use and will only use them if someone asks for them to be included.
We all have our favourite plants- do you use these more than any others (in the right conditions of course) ? I have to admit to using certain plants more than others e.g hellebore, digitalis, primula (cowslip), ajuga, choisya, photinia, erica + others.
There are also plants i avoid usually if they are an occupational hazard (rose, pyracantha, palm, euphorbia, yucca), are too invasive (certain bamboo, anemone japonica, symphoricarpos alba), are'nt hardy enough or i just dont like them (phormium, cordyline).
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I think I generally agree with most of the suggestions and reasons you mention above, though I do appreciate roses and would happily plant them.
I won't ever choose thorny plants if I know it's me looking after the garden after planting. Plus I don't generally find most thorny plants attractive to look at.
For practical reasons I also don't plant hebes as they are prone to outgrowing their surroundings and getting leggy and misshapen. Bamboo for the same reasons as above, doesn't belong in domestic gardens as far as I'm concerned. Muscari (invasive), buddleja (ugly), phormium (really these things don't fit in in the UK!).
Most of the hebes got wiped out in last years winter along with phormiums and cordylines. Cordylines are growing again from the root though.
I must admit that i like buddleja for the wildlife it attracts, but each to their own .
I know what you mean about hebe and ceanothus not liking being pruned. I also find that with choisya but i like it too much. Lavandula can be trouble i agree but i find it just about everywhere i go. Best Lavender i have seen is planted in a clients garden - a raised bed constructed of a dry stone wall with free draining/unfertile infill.
I would never use anything with thorns unless the customer insisted, or it was being used as a 'barrier' plant, ie a Pyracantha hedge to deter tresspassers.
A customer i recently took on has a 'cottage style garden' read jungle full of yellow loosestrife and alchemilla mollis both of which had time to seed before i got involved late this year.
I am so looking forward to spring. Oh and to top it off there is a healthy dose of creeping buttercup too and she is adamantly against the use of weedkiller anywhere.
Yeah, cottage gardens can become a little unruly. I have one customer who once planted geum and now cant stand the site of them as the seedlings pop up everywhere. Every year i pull up dozens of them.
I don't do much planting, but from a maintenance point of view plants i don't like include pyracantha with its glove piercing thorns, perriwinkle which just takes over and is a sod to get rid of, hebes - nice when small and new then get leggy and look crap ( last winter killed off 90% of them thankfully), valerium which one of my customers encourages in her garden - spreads everywhere and smells like a well worn sock, horrible plant!
I like roses, my favourite plant though is Fuchsia, I know they are just a bundle of sticks in the winter but i love them, Before i started gardening professionally, i used to grow standard fuchsias and they were brilliant, until they got attacked by vine weevil! I also grew a few of the exotic species too like f.excorticata and f.procumbens which were my favourites! I'm rambling now, but one day when i've retired perhaps i'll get back into growing them.
Your lists matches mine. I just would add one more - Photinia Fraseri red robin - too easily battered by windy conditions and icy conditions.
Paul @ PPCH Services said: