Sedum sarmentosum trailing with newish Coleus plants.
More Weed Talk, but No Poetry
I loved learning from Anne about out what “Weeds She Wants.” Then for a touch of class she ended the post with a poem, which mine won’t. (Anne routinely classes up the joint by her very Britishness.)
So about weeds, I offer a definition. To me they’re not plants growing where I don’t want them – a common definition – because that would include the Rudbeckias I planted that proceeded to spread wantonly to where I don’t want them. Same deal with milkweed.
No, I think of weeds as volunteers – any plant that comes unbidden into my garden, usually by wind. And here are three such weeds that I’ve welcomed after their surprise arrival in my gardens, arranging them where I think they look best.
Sedum sarmentosum
This trailing Sedum has appeared in both my DC-area gardens and gone on to cover lots of ground successfully without the need for supplemental water. If it spreads where I don’t want it, nothing is easier to pull up than these shallow-rooted babies.
I’ve seen it identified as Sedum acre but local Sedum expert Ed Snodgrass identified it for me as sarmentosum.
Rose Campion or Lychnis coronaria
I’ve nurtured this one for years but I’m even more enamored with it since I painted my front-patio chairs fuchsia. My color preferences seem to be getting bolder as I age.
Mexican Evening Primrose or Oenothera speciosa
This one’s an early summer ephemeral that I wish were a bit more thuggish because I never have enough. It’s apparently a regional native – unless I’m misidentifying it and if I am, I bet someone will tell me.
Rose campion has been a favorite interloper of mine for decades! I love everything about it, except after it blooms it does get shabby looking. Worth it for the rest of the package!
I have tried very hard to grow Lychnis coronaria, even starting it from seed. Next topic could be ‘what weeds do I intend to pinch’ !
Thank you for your kind words re Britishness, which I’ll graciously accept on this Jubilee bank holiday – on behalf of our queen.
God Save the Queen ! Happy Jubilee holiday to you, Anne!
Sedum sarmentosum is pretty thuggish, but in a good way–it covers the ground with amazing speed. I find it will choke out a lot of other weeds, so I use it to keep weeds down in bare areas. Then super easy to pull later. But it always comes back…
So you want your Evening Primroses to be more thuggish? Mine would spread to the gutters on my house if I let it. Seems to come up everywhere. But I decided to let it go in one large area of my garden, as it battles it out with a purple Obedient Plant (it is NOT obedient!), and tall Bee Balm. As the primrose dies out from the heat, the Bee Balm starts blooming, and then the Obedient Plant blooms in late August. I will not, however, let any of these three “jump” the sidewalk to the large swaths of Black-eyed Susans between sidewalk and street, mixed with a large hardy hibiscus, and some cannas, lilies and white Obedient Plant. I have a large group of Goldenrod “weeds” growing in some less-than-wonderful soil that take care of themselves without anything from me. And I love Buttercups in the Spring. I mow around them when I cut what passes for a lawn, which is actually a collection of whatever grows that can live through cold, heat, drought or abundance of rain.
I once heard about a professor at a local college that would strongly correct any student that used the term weed instead of wildflower, or dirt instead of soil.
Susan, your Sedum looks identical to the Sedum kamtschaticum that I have growing all over. (Also known as golden sedum and stringy stonecrop. Or is mine mis-identified as “kamtschaticum”?
My current darling is Hardy Ageratum, aka Conoclinum. It blew into my garden last year, a mystery seedling. I let it grow, and it bloomed very late in the season, lovely tiny puffy flower balls, periwinkle blue. Allan Armitage himself sings its praises in not one, but two very short YouTube videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eepgIlBOogI It is vigorous, though: this year, it has spread to a 2 foot sized mat, plus another 1 foot size mat. So far, it’s contained in a small bed right along the driveway.
I’m seriously thinking about digging up some (yellow) Hawkweed in order to have a little more yellow near my purple and blue plants.
https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/hawkweed/
And putting the hawkweed in my flower border.
Lived in this area for 25 years before I encountered common lippia (Phyla nodiflora). Granted, my previous homes were newly-built on thoroughly scraped ground, and the “new” place is in a neighborhood a bit older than I am. And the old neighborhoods were in the rocky-ish foothills, whereas the new place is near sea-level on old river bottom & flood silt. So some of the plants are different here. But how did I miss lippia? As it presents naturally in my yard, it grows low and viney, slightly gray-green, with pretty little purple flowers adored by the honeybees. Very walkable, even makes a nice smooth rolll of the wheelbarrow. I broke a piece off right after we moved and stuck it in a planter bed that now holds my citrus trees. The irrigation from those trees changed the lippia to 6″ deep lush and green-green vines that have overtaken most of that soil in a short time. Still, I step all over it and it does not seem to suffer under my feet. It just lays a little lower in those spots.
I planted salsify (Tragopogon porrifolius) in my other garden for years, enjoying the flowers far more than I enjoyed eating the root. In my new garden, it grows wild. Not wildly, but freely reseeds itself and grows despite absolutely no water and stupidly dense clay soil. I see it in other yards too, so I know it is not just some remnant in my yard.
There are a few other weeds I happily let grow – broadleaf plantain (Plantago major), bugleweed (Ajuga reptans), clover… Frankly, most anything that grows freely in my yard without water in this dry-even-before-the-drought state is likely to be allowed to continue. Except burr clover. Because, well, *burrs*.
Be careful with your Conoclinum – Hardy Ageratum. Here in northern Illinois Zone 5, I planted it among my daylilies for late summer color. I love it with the Golden Rod and Asters. Catch – it has choked out half of the daylilies and I now spend time in spring and summer trying to dig it all out. It stills leaves me with enough for fall color. Disclaimer: The friend I asked to give it to me said that I would probably be sorry.