One of the persicarias (formerly polygonums). They include knotweeds, smartweeds, and lady's thumb. Probably Persicaria pensylvanica. But there are other persicarias in that area: http://bonap.net/NAPA/TaxonMaps/Genus/County/Persicaria This post was edited by missingtheobvious on Tue, Nov 12, 13 at 23:45

I looked up your suggestions and it looks like definite matches for rudbeckia, snow on the mountain, campanula, verbena hastada, ironweed, and fleabane. I'm not sure on the yellow one. Thank you everyone! It's overwhelming when searching for these on the wildflower websites and trying to narrow it down so thanks for your expertise.

It's one awesomely colored Eurybia. I'm just becoming familiarized with this plant myself. There were these unusual looking plants popping up in my yard that I kept pulling out because I thought they were weeds. The influence of this forum made me curious. I allowed most to grow, so I could get an i.d. Waiting for these plants to flower has seemed like an eternity. I kept checking for blooms and there were none. They go through a weird stage, where the leaves and stems appear greyish- white and look serpentine. Now they have taken on a darker green color and are putting out flower buds .I'm happy I decided to let them grow. They will be the icing on the cake of my late blooming flower party.

You are mostly right, Babs. Eupatoriums typically have opposite or whorled leaves. However, distal leaves are sometimes alternate. Since the first photo seems to mostly show just the top, branched portion of the plants and didn't show the lower half, I couldn't rule out Eupatorium. But I didn't have any great confidence in that genus, either. As stated earlier, we need flowers for more than guesses.