Pacific Northwest Gardening: How to track a wild weed, 1 by tiffanya

tiffanya wrote:
I do google search, browse the DG forums, or reference my little pocket-size book called "Backyard Guide to Selected Obnoxious Weeds" (Second Edition, 2002) that is published by the Pierce County Noxious Weed Control Board.

I picked the book up at last year's spring garden show in Puyallup. There's a number on the front -- 253-798-7263 -- I bet they'd probably pop one in the mail to you. It's pretty helpful; has photos of the plants, along with common and latin names, descriptions, and what herbicide or mechanical method to use for control. It has a lot of weeds that are common to our area (e.g., chickweed, buttercup, broad-leaved plantain, horsetail).

When doing google search, I generally search on the common name plus "invasive" to learn about the plant (e.g., "california poppy invasive"). [Years ago a household 1 block away planted California poppies and the following year, everyone on the block had them popping up in their yards!] I try to stick with plants that are either easy to control via mechanical methods (pulling) or seeds seem to stay within the yard rather than blowing abundantly about the neighborhood. ;-) Gotta say I love the forget-me-nots and pansies, however, and they both like to self-sow.

I wish the nurseries and seed companies would do a better job of indicating "invasiveness" on the plant/seed labels. Two years ago I picked up some cute little four-leafed clover plants (oxalis) only to check them out later on DG and learn that they're quite invasive. As a result, those little guys came right out of the ground and got put in the composter. At least I got them out before they took over! ;-)

Photo: Pacific Science Center's Butterfly Room :-)

This message was edited Apr 1, 2007 7:30 PM