What are your worst weeds?

Define "worst" however you want.

My list:
1. Creeping speedwell. It is a winter annual, millions of seedlings appear all fall and winter. It grows like crazy all through the lawn.

2. Rudbeckia. Yes, black-eyed susan. Hundreds of seedlings appear everywhere in the gardens and lawns. The established plant puts out so many new crowns, it has very quickly worn out its welcome.

3. Echinecea. Purple cone flower. Same as Rudbeckia.

4. Aegopodium. Goutweed, Bishop's Weed. Horribly invasive except in dense heavy clay, the leaves get burned by mid-summer and smother everything they land on. Nasty, brutish plant that is impossible to eliminate. Worst of all, I planted it originally!!!!

5. Capsella. Shepherd's Purse. This one has leaves of so many different shapes, it is impossible to identify until the seed-capsules arrive, by then it is too late! (not to mention it is so insignificant it is easy to over-look until it has formed its pods)

6. Ipomoea. Morning Glory (ducking). Once they go to seed, you better hope you liked it; you will never be free of them again.

7. Oxalis stricta. Yellow wood sorrel. At least this one has kind of pretty flowers, even if they do make millions of seeds yearly.

8. Digitaria. Crabgrass. Nuff said.

So curious to know what weeds y'all battle. Got a good list? And be honest: which did you deliberatly plant to begin with?

Mine is still... and will always be horsetail!!

Wow Poppysue, you could make a fortune selling them to aquatic nurseries! Here a small plant is $6.95

dandelionsin NY and some monstrosity that came with the free county recycle center mulch in FL. Don't know the name of the FL weed but it can grow 6' tall in under 5 minutes and spreads all over the place. has little white flowers but at least it pulls easily.

Perennial rye. I hate it hate it hate it. Stan planted a hay field to it 10 or more years ago and it has colonized the entire farm in varying degrees.

Orchard grass, almost as bad, but at least native.

sheep sorrel, nasty little roots!

ground ivy, gill over the ground, or any of 100 or so other names, member of the mint family

flowering bamboo or Japanese knotweed ( a persicaria not to be confused with any real babmboo ) I hope to be winning this war, but it is insidious and worse because it was purposely planted in the garden as an ornamental

Some of the weeds I tolerate are daisies, dandelions, viola tricolor, forget-me-nots and Tom and Jess.

We have a new weed called water hemp. Covers the ground, inches apart. They will grow as tall as needed to beat out the crop. Then they are about 2 feet taller than everything else, don't matter, corn, soybeans, or our garden stuff.
They look like red root pigweed, but smooth stalk. Must be an amaranthus of some kind.
Bernie

This stuff isn't the same species they sell for water gardens. It doesn't get as tall and bushes out more. The water garden type is just as bad tho ... as far as being invasive goes. Hiking around one time we found a set of abandoned railroas tracks that was overgrown with it. As far as you could see was horsetail!

The roots spider out into the soil and go down three feet or more. No amount of pulling or digging will get it all out. Horsetail has changed my perspective on herbicides. The only thing I've found that will keep it in check is a shrub & brush killer... and that takes several applications.

A weed identified as Purslane! Any bare soil is immediately swallowed, you can almost see it spread before your eyes!

Another less rampant but equally anoying is a weed that has been identified as a weed variety of Abutilon.... I had three that reached over 5ft before I got around to pulling them up, I'll never make that mistake again, they were like trying to pull up a tree!

Dandelions, Indian tobacco, clover of any sort, quackgrass.Theyare all a royal pain.

Here in Alaska, I battle several types of weeds that are native to our area, but many were 'imported'. I was surprised to see that Poppysue battles horsetail, too! If you've ever tried to dig it up, the roots are interconnected and grow very deep. The stems are jointed, so it pops off at ground level and spreads.. a real menace!

Plantain grows all over in my yard, but, as my old mother used to say, "If you mow anything long enough, it becomes lawn." An interesting note is that all these weeds seem to grow seeds on shorter stems in the yard where we mow!

In the flower beds, our most common weed is 'Chickweed'. If left to its own devices, it will choke out other plants, and it reseeds all summer.

When clearing new ground, one of our real monsters is 'Devil's Club. It grows to seven feet or more when established, and it grows suckers from a root system that must start in Canada. If you cut it back, it throws more limbs from the stump. It has barbs running up the stem, and under the leaf spines, as well. If you touch the Devil's Club it will leave its barbs under your skin to fester. The bears eat its berries in the fall before going into hybernation. While impressive in the wild, you do not want it in your garden!

Gosh, sounds like you guys battle Godzilla-sized weeds! I guess I shouldn't complain about our wimpy little California weeds, but I will:
-Yellow oxalis (oxalis corniculata): pretty, but everywhere, even in stone paths. If you leave it to die naturally (which it does in early summer) it seems to sterilize the area; even the Bermuda grass takes a couple months to recover from it.
-Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon): planted as lawn everyplace. We went through gallons of Roundup killing it off over a full year before we finally got rid of it. It will grow through anything you plant over it, no matter how well covered the surface seems to be.
-Sowthistle (Sonchus species): look like dandelions, except they have nasty stems and leaves that have fine hairs that poke you unmercifully if you don't remember to wear gloves. Just as hard to get rid of, too.
-Spotted spurge (Chamaesyce maculuta): this is actually rather pretty, but has developed a cunning ability to hide under my aptenia, disguising itself until it occurs to me that my aptenia has red flowers, not pink ones!
-Blackberry (rubus species): Well, they do have wonderful edible berries. But the thorns are wicked, and the stuff simply smothers everything in its path.
-Ivy: The favorite hiding place of roof rats. My introduction to our overgrown backyard was watching a roof rat that must have been three feet long from nose to tail, sauntering down the ivy that hung from the walnut tree. Fortunately the tree is a long ways from the house, because I get a little upset at the idea of large rodents inside my own four walls.
-Yellow Nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus) is a common weed around here, but after we yanked out the old adobe soil and replaced it with compost, that seemed to have almost eliminated it completely.
-Nandina domestica aka Heavenly Bamboo: Lots of people plant this, as it's evergreen, delicate looking, and requires absolutely no care. However, it suckers slowly but steadily, and any piece of root will resprout. Eradication is best achieved by means of extensive dynamiting. As this is unfortunately unpractical as well as illegal, one must stay alert and yank out every single sprig that shows itself, including the ones determinedly working their way through 4" of heavy gravel rock; they will come right back within a year if given the opportunity.

Did you know people used to eat purslane in salads?

Ours is an awful thistle, prickers that hurt all the way up and down the stem and all over all sides of the leaves and lovely purple flowers that make dandelion type seeds that work their way down into things like pachysandra and other ground covers.

We have shepherd's purse too...
and in my back yard, the ivy is part of the grass, we mow it like grass.

And of course my entire back yard in the far reaches is full of, you guessed it, poison ivy and some sort of wild rose that has no roses but plenty of nasty little thorns.

Yuck!

Crimson, your picture of weed, we call buttonweed around here. It is everywhere if not controled. Farmers have herbicides that stop it in its tracks. We have a lot in our market garden. Makes great shade for watermelons.LOL. Not too bad if you keep it down. Has to be hand pulled, as a cultivator or tiller just moves it around.
Lenjo, there is actually a very sucessful dairy farm in northern MN, near Hibbing, that feeds nothing but quackgrass to his dairy cows. To far north to raise alfalfa, so has figured out how to farm the quackgrass. He says it has never winter killed!
Bernie

Weeds, weeds, weeds. Feeding them to livestock could be the answer, if you don't compost the manure. The seeds love all that warm compost. I have a friend that feeds chickweed to her chickens, then used the manure in her compost. She has the best compost I've ever used, but it's always full of chickweed.

I've been battling bindweed for years, but I think I am getting closer to winning that fight after about 10 years.

Clover is rapidly becoming a problem with all the CRP land around us.

Dandilions were a problem even before we ripped up most of our yard to build, so I'm assuming that they will be even more of a problem in the next few years since they love newly moved dirt that brings all them millions of seeds to the surface again.

But, I am in agreement with Crimson on the purslane. It's my worst problem. I cannot dig that stuff fast enough. It starts as a small clump and becomes a huge mat in a matter of days. I've read that it puts out a billion seeds too. I have that stuff growing in the gardens, lawns, driveway cracks, sidewalk cracks.... Ugg!

Ah, Lupinelover, I should come help you weed! This brown-eyed Susan loves Rudbeckia and echinacea! LOL! Have to agree with Poppysue about the horsetail..its relentless stuff. Almost forgot...I love lupine also!

This message was edited Saturday, Jan 25th 8:52 AM

the Artillary plant???? it can be seen all over in my garden...the idea is to GET IT QUICK, before the little fine flower shoots up and moves to another spot! hate it! E.

Purslane a weed? When you go out to harvest your lettuce for tonight's salad, pinch off the seedlings and add them to the bowl. Yyuummmm!!! But a little goes a long way until you acquire the habit of eating it: just a leaf or two per salad at first. Mine never lasts long enough to be invasive. Word of warning, though: before you eat weeds, make sure you know what they really are, and if they are edible!!!!!

Weez, what is that Devil's Club? It looks absolutely wonderful IMO.

Rudbeckia, sure, c'mon over and help me weed :)

Elaine, what is "the artillery plant"?

I am fortunate to not have bindweed: my next door neighbor has been losing the battle with hers for years. At least she keeps it enough under control that it doesn't flower and set seed. It even killed the tawny daylily patch she inherited when they moved in!

LL: Devil's Club is a very interesting plant to view from afar. I suppose it fits better in the shrub catagory, since the stems get woody and the size of saplings. The stickers are the real issue, I guess, and the fact that it spread underground and is hard to get rid of. Bears love it's hard, bitter berries, so it serves a purpose in the wild.

Psssst - you've acknowledged your arch enemies in the garden, now aren't you going to give 'em a negative rating in the Plants Database?

It won't eradicate these pests from your garden, but it might give other gardeners second thoughts about planting something they got in a trade, once they do a bit of research...

I have a hard time giving a plant a negative rating unless the plant itself is inferior in some way... such a a poor cultivar, etc. Devil's Club is a wonderous plant indeed in the wild, but not in my garden. Someone else in a different climate would be nursing it along in a pot, thrilled to see one sticker. We're back to the "weed" definition. It also brings up the question of why we have a PDB. If we are only interested in garden plants, the negative/positive issue is clearer, but if one is researching wild plants, it's a different issue.

I guess we need to define what the 'negative', 'positive', 'neutral' options really mean. I use neutral when I've researched a plant, but haven't had personal experience growing it. I use positive for mostly anything I list, since I raised it and probably had good luck with it. As for negative, I'm very careful what I list in that category, and I always try to explain why.

Perhaps we should have a noxious plant list and an icon that we can click to it when a plant is invasive or a threat to the other native species of an area.

I have one I don't know what it is called,we called it Michigan bamboo,It made it south with a hemlock I brought back,Its a monster,roots break easy and runners go in every direction,even under sidewalks.one runner went 15ft before coming up in my compost bin,it has a red stalk,with joints similar to bamboo,white flowers like joe pye.Terry if I knew what it was I would be putting some comments in PDB!
sorry didn't mean to go off,LOL,just thinking about it gets me going,
I also battle Maypop,crackgrass,and my Hood is full of silvermaples and cottonwood,so seedlings are a big hassle
Root

Wild Onions!!!

Oh, I forgot to mension the False Strawberry (Duchesnea indica) that I thought would be a nice ground cover... Oh my! From a sprinkle of seeds.... a wave that's sweeping rapidly over everything... sun to full shade, runner after runner in a tangled mess climbing over and swallowing everything in it's path... I mistakenly thought since it came from zone 6 it would have a hard time here... it was happy healthy all the way up to snowfall, cold did not bother it a bit. In spring I'm going to get down on my knees and try to remove every bit... if it sets fruit it will take over every yard in the area (birds and chipmunks will spread it).


This message was edited Saturday, Jan 25th 8:37 PM

This message was edited Saturday, Jan 25th 9:27 PM

Oh yes,swedish ivy?and bishops weed,I call snow on the mountain.

Continuing to be good, I was updating more herbs in the PDB and came across comfrey. Good grief, how could I leave comfrey out of my list of worst weeds????

Anyone know how to get rid of it? I swear it is worse than thistles! Andrew Carnegie spent a big bunch of money trying to figure out how to make this plant into a food crop. Don't waste your money: it is carcinogenic.

OOOOH, 1601 !!!! artillery plant!

Do you think you could send me some seeds? or starts or whatever... they sell it here as plants, except that it is
hard to find.

Johnson Grass, hunh, when we bought this land the seller told us that whenever johnson grass grows well, the soil is very rich.

Well, for the past SIXTEEN YEARS we have been mowing it down over and over (which Organic Garcdenig magazine SAID was the best way to get rid of it)... and we still have some, The roots cane get to 1/2 in dismeter and can run over 50 feet
and push temselves into or seed themselves into ANYWHERE!

Also native sunflowers. although are ALMOST gone, and the dandelinions we just tolerate, as do all out neighbors....it eventually gets too hot for them, but I SWEAR they really DO
bloom all wintre long over the septic drainage fields since it is warm there!

They are pretty in spring, but enough already!

And cockleburrs, we have also eradicated those, thank goodness! ...for NOW at least!

THANKS for lettin mw rant!

Now DONT get me goin on FAHR ANTS !!!!

There are an awful lot of weeds aren't there? At my other place where i lived for 50 years I had a lot of horsetail, I think there are two kinds, there was the spikey kind that grew on the irrigation ditch bank and then the kind that grew in the shady moist places in my garden that looked like Poppysues picture. I never did irradicate the feathery kind, sort of kept it under control. The county agent said the only thing he knew to control it is Casoran, but can't use that near anything you don't want to kill. Here where it is drier I haven't had that problem I do have a lot of purslane, which isn't hard to hoe out but then its roots just turn around and go into the soil and al lot of it still grows, miserable problem. Also have a lot of thistles to contend with. RoundUp will kill thistles but since i try to grow organically don't like to use it unless absolutely necessary. rutholive (Donna)

And you know, In Mexico purslane, known as verdolagas is edible....although it may not be the same cultivar as your spiny prickly one.

But then, nettles are also edible, and they ARE prickly little critters!

Purslane is edible, and some folks do eat it along with other salad greens. In case you're not hungry for this exotic fare, buckwheat is supposed to kill out purslane pretty well.