Where ever we've lived we have had a particular difficult weed. Here in Porthcawl, it's this, ' Cuckoo Pint' It pops up under our hedges and in our flower beds. It is really difficult to dig up, as the stems are quite delicate, so when you yank them out, the little bulb is left behind. So careful digging and wiggling of your trowel to get them right up!
It develops into these.. bright red and poisonous, we've dig a few up this afternoon.. but I'm sure there will soon be more.
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These we had in Billericay, but as we drive around we see them everywhere.. 'Three Cornered Leek' We're keeping a watchful eye out for any in our garden, because they are very difficult to eradicate.
The RHS gardens at Hyde Hall, Essex, had dug out a flower bed down to sub-soil and left it fallow for three years plus, in an effort to get rid of it. It's a plant that is against the country side law to plant in the county side.. called Three Cornered Leek because the leaves have three edges! Pretty? Yes but smells like an onion and is a thug./
And here is Alkanet, which we had in our Suffolk garden. The previous owners thought it pretty and had allowed it to grow. It had underground runners, so a horrid one to get rid of, I dug it up as fast as I saw it, but it wasn't easy.
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And of course there's the dandelion, here it is rife in our lawns. But reduced in the front after a weed and feed treatment.. once it seeds they blow every where and the long tap root snaps to allow a new plant to grow before you've turned around! I know people say they are food for the bees rousing from winter. So they can be, but in someone else's garden!
Of course we have daises in our grass as well, but they show where Dh has missed when he's cutting the grass!
So flowers in the wrong place or a weed, what do you think?
Chrisxx
10 comments:
I remember sitting next to a woman who was ranting about dandelions, and how she hated them, but her neighbour allowed them to grow "for the sake of the bees". The woman the listed all the weedkillers she used on her garden to eradicate such evil plants. I was not a gardener then - but felt uncomfortable at the thought of all that poison being poured into the earth. I determined that I would allow dandelions. I love their golden sunny faces brightening the day
I'm always cheered to see dandelions, so bright and cheerful.
Dandelions! They are one of the first signs of Spring and lovely yellow and after that, they are not one of my favorite weeds. We have something like your Cuckoo Pint, but it is Jack in the Pulpit and not common, rather a rare native wild flower. Wish I had just one here. We have Black Garlic brought over 200 years or more ago. That stuff stinks and spreads like wild fire.
I think it was the years of using Round-up when working for the County Council and then at our smallholding that gave my husband the Lymphoma that killed him.
So I embrace those weeds now - especially the Dandelions for the bees and remove them only when they get big enough to take moisture from the veg.
Some people would call the bluebells and aquilegia weeds as they take over the flower beds but they are OK with me!
Some are pretty, but still a weed. We have some lily of the valley that is acting like a weed. We didn't plant it, but it's taking over a bed in our back yard!
We don’t spray the lawn and have a weed taking over. All the neighbours who don’t spray have it too. It stays green when grass is parched. We’ve come to accept it rather than spray it.
If it's pretty I say it's a flower. If it is ugly as all get out... it's a weed. Hehe
A weed is something that grows where you don't want it to grow! I rather like the tenacity of some weeds.
My sister's favorite flower is a dandelion, to me it's a weed :) It's all in the eye of the beholder I guess.
I love the bright yellow of the dandelion but try to take the clock heads off if I can in the garden. It was fun to blow the fluffy heads when I was a child though.
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