Oh dear, I am sorry to here that.

I guess the answer is time and practice. After awhile you do recognize flower seedings from weed seedling. Until then, you'll find lots of pictures online. Remember what you sewn, then look it up before you weed.
I hope you wouldn't get discouraged. Best of luck.

Libby

I leave the weeds. They keep the soil from drying out. Most of the winter weeds will die back soon from the heat. And I know what crabgrass looks like.

well I can't tell weed seedlings from my annual seeds for sure. Maybe that's the reason I've not had success with verbena bonariensis. My salvias and echinaceas I could tell. Let me give you a trick. Leave their stems intact through winter. That way, when they start emerging, you could distinguish them from weeds.

I can also recognize weeds like thistle and dandelions so I know to remove them when they come out.

It might help in the future if you plant your seeds in rows. Weeds don't grow in rows, so you should be able to tell which is which. You can always transplant your seedlings when they get bigger.

I guess you just have to know what your plants look like. Then anything else must be a weed.

One of my neighbors here the husband did all the gardening, the wife just looked at the flowers. One time the husband had to spend time in the hospital and the wife had to weed the garden. She pointed to each and every plant and weed and asked me if they were flowers or weeds. She had no idea which was which. I have no idea what she would have done if she couldn't ask me.

It is a rather steep learning curve. The 1st set of leaves, or Cotyledons, look almost the same for most plants. It is what is called the 1st TRUE leaves that give a hint at who it will be. Grass, thistles, dandelions - all easy to spot after the 2nd set of leaves. Or the 3rd. No harm in leaving everything to reveal it`s true nature!! Hey they're easier to pull then, too. I have tonnes of little seedlings coming up right now and I am really hoping that they are larkspur and poppy. Who knows? I will, in a week or so. Also, many seed packets show what the 'true' leaves will look like - a good help. Hey, don't panic. Leave them all - you can always pull the weeds later!!!

Nancy.

I normally spread a thin layer of triple mix and while doing that I kill off the emergent seedlings. I like to control what seeds grow in my yard, so this is a way of controlling. The top soil helps to 'clean' up the yard- looks fresh and uniform. A process I've not yet tried is to mix the seeds I will sow with fine sand. This way, I can get to mark off the areas I've planted in. It will work for a couple of days until I've planted all I needed to plant.

If you are just pulling off the leaves a perennial will return. If it is a perennial plant, you would find a semi-woody clump of roots. Weeds will just be roots. I would let them go until they are taller and you can see the true nature of the plant. I bet you can tell the difference then. It does take some years to begin to recognize the good guys. I still make a mistake sometimes.

I can relate, I'm a relatively new gardener and have made many mistakes and killed many of my plants! Lol* I'm getting a lot better though and I agree a lot of recognizing your plants from weeds is just practice, looking well at the leaves when they are in bloom and learning to identify the shape and characteristics of those plants. I still find things popping up in the garden that I cannot identify and to play it safe I let things grow until I can determine if it is a weed or something I planted intentionally. Seedlings can be difficult to identify, but something I have done as my garden has expanded is taken a white cotton string cord and tied it around the base of the plant in late fall. You don't need to do it tightly and in many instances when you are cutting back plants for the year it can really neaten things up. Then there will be no mistaking that plant for a weed the following spring when you begin your cleanup.

Also if you check the search bar for garden web there are a lot of pictures of seedlings here that might help you. ;)

Good luck!

I have been gar*dening for a long time, so that is not usually a problem for me any more. When I was starting out gar*dening, I stuck to removing only those emerging pl*ants that I recognized as a weed. Two main weeds in my gar*den are Maple Tree seedlings and dandelions. Just pulling all of those took care of a majority of the weeds. Everything else, I let grow until I could tell if it were friend or foe. I sometimes have help with the weeding and I have to resort to the same type of guidelines. Either I have to follow along identifying every weed, or I ask that helpers only pull those they recognize as weeds.

As Libby said, time and practice will take care of itself. Once you've started pl*ants from seed, pl*anted many of the pl*ants in the gar*den yourself and watched them over a season or two, to see what they look like when they emerge, then you will be an expert too.

This is the second year in my new and large flowerbeds and what I did was leave all the dead plants in from last year and when I saw green coming up this Spring I knew it was the plant and not a weed. I let the new growth come up a couple of inches then I cut back the branches from the old plant.

I'm a novice, so if I can do it, you can too! :)

prairiemoon, I just want to say - that's a clever way to avoid those annoying link ups to words such as garden-ing. Notice how gardening is automatically linked up with advertisements but not gar*dening.

I can definitely relate--so, no, you aren't dumb! Last year I invested in little copper labeling stakes and labeled everything.

I find the labels help not only with avoiding pulling out something I want to keep, but they also help me place other plants. I did a bunch of direct sowing in early March, and did it with the existing perennials locations in mind. Same thing with summer flowering bulbs. I just planted all of those within the past month, and still I thank my lucky stars that I labeled the locations. I can't tell you how many times I've been just about to dig and then see the label and know that I can't put whatever I'm moving in that location. Without the labels, I'm sure I would have yanked up my ranunculus by now. The foliage looks very weedy!

Anyway, that works for me. Now seedlings are a whole different story! I find the seed site's photos helpful. I'll include the link in case you don't have it.

Lisa

Here is a link that might be useful: The Seed Site - Seedling Images

Wow! Thanks for all the responses!

Libby - your garden is gorgeous, and you are an expert. I guess this is my year for learning! I just don't want to repeat this again next year.

Token - I don't think that would work in my garden. It is full of weeds because last year I had some personal problems and all the weeds went to seed. Can you imagine 10,000 weeds for every 2 plants? That's what it looked like to me!

ianna - Yes, those sticks help with some plants. Unfortunately, they are not on every plant, and that's where I get confused. Even though these are plants that I left in the ground, not seedlings, they just all look to same to me when they are emerging. I'm trying to get the weeds out so I can mulch around the emerging plants. Maybe I'll give the emergent seed killer a try. That would help a lot with the weed seeds that have taken root.

Nancy - I think you're right. I'm just a little anxious to get those small little weeds out, that I don't wait to see what is actually coming up. I'll certainly have to be more patient from now on. Like a little guessing game!

gldno - No, not just the leaves. I pull the whole thing! Thanks for admitting you still make mistakes sometimes. I guess I'll just have to keep on learning by trial and error!

quilt mommy - You're right. I need to look at the leaves more, not just the blooms! lol That's how I saved some of my coreopsis. I realized that I had planted quite a few of those and that they had to be there somewhere, so I started trying to figure out if something looked like I might have actually planted it. Guess I'm just a vigorous weeder!

prairiemoon - You're right. I'm going to have to go a little slower and a little more meticulously when I weed. I'm used to having shrubs, and they're easy to weed around. This perennial bed is a different type of animal, isn't it?

oakley - I did save a few things when I could figure out an old plant was there. I'm beginning to realize that a lot of my problem is impatience - I don't prepare my beds properly, just start planting, and so the weeds are never gone, they just keep growing like the plants I've mixed in with them!

lisa - That seems like a great solution. I'm thinking I'll give that system a try this year. Maybe with plastic knives. Not sure how the little white plastic knives will look stuck up everywhere in the winter, but if it will help me save my plants, it will be worth it. These are not seedlings, but plants I purchased, and now I'm re-purchasing. DH keeps asking "don't we already have some of those?" (Uh, we did.)

Thanks again to everyone. I'm learning that I'll have to be a little more patient, not be so militant in my weeding, and mark my plants in some way over the winter. Next year maybe I'll be a little smarter! Thanks again!

sprout - My plants are not in any type of row. They are all over! lol But these aren't seeds - they're plants that were supposed to return again. I've been reluctant to sow seeds as I've done the same thing with seeds before - weeded them all up!

newyorkrita - you are exactly right. I need to really learn my plants, and their leaves. I know what your neighbor would have done - weeded up all the perennials, just like me! lol She was lucky to have you to help her, and I'm sure her husband was thankful, too.

Don't know how I missed you two before. Thanks to both of you for your responses. :)

When I still had spaces in my garden I used to seed in between my plants but I'd scatter the seeds in a circle with a temporary marker stick in the middle. So when the seeds came up in a circle and they were all the same I knew they were perennial seedlings.

My DH has always helped with the heavy work but started helping more when I had my business and worked long hours. The first year he did the weeding I wondered why my perennial seedlings didn't come up! haha Finally figured out he thot they were weeds. Since then we've left the weeding until we can tell which is which for sure. Get the dandelions and grass out but others can stay awhile. They make great compost.

Another thing I've done is to seed perennials in the fall in a wooden tray. My DH made these from scrap wood and I left them in the garden so they'd get the sun, snow, and rain and not need much care. Transplant after weeding was done.

"Gardening is a growing experience."

luckygal - that's a great system to put seeds in a circle. With everyone's suggestions, maybe next year I'll be able to tell the difference between a perennial and a weed!

without stems,leave the foliage untouched until th efollowing year or dig in bamboo sticks.