Thursday, September 16, 2010

Plant Identification

Today it's your turn to tell me about a couple of plants. We've had both of these weeds/wildflowers in the garden for years and I haven't got a clue as to what they are. The one above appeared about 10 years ago. Never had been here before and neither of us had seen it anywhere. My guess is that seed came in on a plant we bought. It is a biennial, forms a shiny green rosette the first year that is evergreen and persists all winter. That's how we find a lot of them since when everything else is dead and brown they really stand out. The first year it bloomed, just a plant or two, we thought it was so pretty that we left it, thinking it might be a nice addition to the garden. NOT. The next year, after it had seeded it was everywhere. Thousands of them, literally, all over the garden. It makes long skinny seed pods that pop and spread seeds around. My guess is that birds or critters also helped with the spread.
I still think it is a really pretty plant. There aren't all that many pale pink wildflowers growing here and I'm a sucker for pink flowers, but it is just far too invasive to let it be. The picture I took doesn't have too many blooms, because it was hard to find one that Hank hadn't yanked out before it had many blooms open. I marked that one and kept it as long as I could, but at one point he said 'take the picture now if you want it because I'm pulling it out'. It can get 2 feet tall, though most seem to be a foot or so. I've also seen 2 or 3 inch tall ones blooming - sneaky things hiding in the crown of another plant. We've always called it 'Pink Weed', for lack of anything else to call it. I've checked my many wildflower books and one on weeds, but can't find anything that looks anything like it, so if anyone knows what this is, I'd sure like to know. Not that knowing will get rid of it, but at least it will have a name and can be $#&!@ ___, instead of $#&!@ Pink Weed.
Weed number two, that for lack of a better name, has been known here as white weed since it has white flowers. This one may have arrived with a pond or bog plant since it appeared first in our bog. This one is a little easier to control as long as you can find it since it seems to be an annual. Get it before it seeds and it's gone. Unfortunately, the bog gets grassy late in the season and this stuff crawls along beneath it, blooming and seeding quite happily. Succulent stem and the flowers are tiny, maybe the size of your little finger nail. The seeds are black, hence the other name we have been calling it - 'Black Seeded Weed'. Someone must know what these two things are. Please leave a comment if you have any ideas. I tried looking on the web, but without a name, I didn't get very far.
Jane

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Looks like this may be the same plant I'm trying to identify here:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1130290/

You might want to watch that thread in case anyone identifies it.