31–40 of 51 posts
Douglas Fir. Not a weed when over 100 years? Definitely a weed when 100s of seedlings sprout in my garden each spring?
Same with Tulip Poplar. It's a very nice tree, I don't need 500 of them in my landscaping every spring, thanks.
Japanese weed is a good example. Maybe it is well behaved in native range, but in US and most of the world, it is invasive and super-problematic. Another is poison hemlock, which is wise to carefully remove since it is poisonous and invasive. It also depends on the area, English ivy is noxious weed around here because it is invasive and spreads well, but lots of people still like it.
I think it's also arguable that something can only be a weed in a human managed landscape. We have hills around us that no one manages and I would argue that nothing up there is a weed.
This also segues into what is "nature". My kids like to say "be kind to nature". I don't care if they pull up the grass in the hills around us, but I do care about them pulling up grass at the park. Arguably a park isn't anymore "nature" than the houses and streets we build. It's all fake nature - just an organic version of astroturf.
I'm about to eat some shelling peas I foraged on the edge of a grass field (yeah, we grow grass seeds as a crop here). The peas were last years crop so not exactly a weed but effectively the same thing.
Farmers call those peas "volunteer crops". Volunteer crops are considered weeds.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Farmers call those peas "volunteer crops". Volunteer crops are considered weeds.
#1 weed among in my garden last year was tomatoes. I let tomatoes fall off the vine and drop their seeds the year prior, and last year I planted something else entirely, but the tomatoes made an appearance. They hybridize easily, so whatever was growing was some weird conglomeration of several varieties of tomato.
my uncle with an ag degree has always said “a weed is any plant in a place you don’t want it.” I’m getting better at accepting this and moving / pulling things that may be beautiful but have outgrown their spot in my yard.
Mint is very clearly an herb. Given the right conditions, it will also pretty much overtake large patches of garden and lawn. I generally take a very Darwinian approach to what grows in and around my garden given that any careful curation tends to get overtaken by native grasses from my field. But the mint can be a bit much--though I mostly let it do what it wants at this point.