Take it in your stride

In my time I have thought toadflax, Himalayan Balsam and green Alkanet pretty, encouraged them and have lived to regret it.

Ah! Thanks

jeni - I always call monkey flowers 'baby snapdragons'. Very pretty.

Bags what are monkey flowers.and please don't even think of rosebay willow herb. If you do, it suddenly doubles overnight!

That's true, Bags - I have a collection of hellebores growing alongside the fence where I presume the birds have perched and deposited the seeds.

Seeds dropped by birds will often have a nice little fertiliser packet dropped with them

What I really do not understand about gardening, is why the seeds from my neighbours plants, very nice plants I might add, so always welcome, will grow in my garden, obviously carried by the wind or birds, yet those seeds which I choose to plant and will hopefully blossom into flowers I like, refuse to do anything other than come up and die. I am no gardener I know, but I do try to look after things, and welcome my neighbours intruders as they are very nice plants, but not really what I would like. Weeds of course grow and bloom beautifully, and it always seems such a pity to me that dandelions are cut off in their prime.

Tall, yellow, daisy-like flowers, which I think may be perennial sunflowers, are running amok in one of my beds. I have no idea where they came from!

Mine are wild monkeys. They just put themselves where they are in a boggy bit. Are there cultivated versions? (apart from us)

Monkey flowers just will not flourish in my garden!
However, weeds and trees grow at a tremendous rate!

Chinese lanterns are my weeds! I could never grow them so bought 3 a couple of years ago on the basis that one would take!

That's allright . Noted that monkey flowers are opening in my garden yesterday, and rose bay willowherb is growing in among the peony and bistort.

BUMP!

GNHQ Posts are still disappearing!!

Sorry B - Your thoughtful and interesting post has developed into lovely weeds!

Oh! I love dog violets! Send them my way!

In my garden the things I planted on purpose have become the weeds. Dog violets for instance, little devils. I have very few spontaneous intruders. A few dandelions mainly.

I spend more time pulling up the weeds than seeing to the pot plants they appear before my eyes I think ?

JessM...clever!!!

Jess

They keep trying - any opportunity and they'll give germination a go.

Why are weeds so successful?

....... and now I'm off to the garden, before the sun gets too hot, and I shall ponder some more. I'll be weeding. The weeds, by the way, have been terribly successful because the right conditions, at the right time have ensured that, and they never give up!

I found this article interesting only in so much as it concentrated on the success or failure of academic performance, rather than any other form of success/failure. This raised numerous (too numerous this early in the morning!) questions about how one defines success or failure, and who or what defines it. It is terribly subjective, isn't it.
Academic success, in a specific field, for a specific reason, was important to me and I made sure I achieved it, in order to work in the field that I did. This travels along with me and remains an import factor in my life today, as it represents a core value in how I see myself. Maybe because I achieved this in my 40's - rather late in the day, some may say. With failure, I suppose it depends on what one does with it and how it is allowed to impact.
I think one can learn to fail, and learn to succeed, which depends upon so many variables it would be impossible to quantify them all.
So all this waffling is my way of saying that success and failure are life's bedfellows, and if one is fortunate, then a balance may be understood and achieved that allows a restful nights sleep!

It was the head of Wimbledon High School for Girls (private school) who sparked this debate a few months ago at a Heads conference. She felt many of the girls had charmed lives where things they had achieved, both materially and academically, had been got reasonably easily. She was worried once they were at Uni & in the wider world with more competition they were less prepared for failure and rejection! IMO many young people in private schools have a certain confidence and expectation that they 'can do'. This is not always based on reality so maybe they do need to know about failing!!