Third year growing in my native garden and each winter I try to milk jug some different seeds. I thought I was growing liatris but turns out horse weed took over that container. Never really questioned it until my farmer friend came over and broke the news to me when looking over my plants.
I was starting to get suspicious when I haven't seen purple blooms yet. Maybe it was a bit of denial too. So bummed. I was looking forward to these butterfly magnets.
I guess I'll see what pollinators come around with these little white flowers and then chop the heads off when they go to seed. At least there will be space to fill in next year!
What's your biggest plant mix up?
by zuzi325
10 Comments
Horseweed is fine and native, its somewhat attractive when it develops seeds, pollinators like it. It doesn’t matter if you let it seed or not because there will be millions of seeds blown in by the wind anyway.
i let some horseweed grow this year right next to my main native garden and i was shocked at the number of pollinators i saw hanging out by it! granted they were likely mainly there to hit up the other flowers but whatever works
I purposefully let some volunteers grow this summer!
I just found some horse weed in my yard yesterday and am planning to nurture it and see what happens!
Same thing happened to me in my rain garden. Was showing people how amazing my great blue lobelia was doing! Then a few more weeks and I’m like that thing looks like horse weed!
The same thing happened with me and my winter sown seedlings. Thought I was growing canadian anemone and turned out to be just a random weed. So frustrating! Oh well, I have to try again this year.
I had one growing for a bit, until I could identify it. It was in the veg beds, so once I realized what it was, I pulled it. Don’t need millions of see produced where I am trying to grow food for myself, but agree, it is not a bad looking plant. We can’t all be cardinal flowers, and frankly, apart from hummingbirds, I do not see much pollinator activity at the Cardinal flower. It is there gratuitously because I am attracted to the bright red color.
I leave some of that to grow. It’s kind of irritating when it grows in my driveway but it’s far from the only plant that does that.
I did grow liatris too, it just started blooming. Looks nice. About half of the flower stalks got eaten, I assume by deer, but the base foliage is still alive so maybe I’ll get more next year.
Horse weed is really yummy! I often add the new growth to my meals
I had rag weed proudly growing in my veggie garden for quite awhile before I realized it wasn’t one of the nice flower seed packet flowers I thought I had put there