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Cottage Gardens

Please help me ID this weed/wildflower/surprise plant

15 years ago

These popped up in a dumped pile of soil, in a somewhat shady area (shady from trees, not nefarious characters). I enjoyed their airy look, and they bloomed for about a month. So...I was considering actually spreading them to another spot in my casualy evolving cottage garden, but of course, speaking of nefarious characters, I realize that they might be the Ghengis Khan of weeds, spreading a lot of horror and destruction among the plant world.

I looked up MN yellow wildflowers in an online database, and didn't see them. I looked up noxious weeds, and didn't see them. However, I am positive that someone here will know what they are, since we cottage gardeners don't yank every weed that we see as soon as we see it, and sometimes get a happy surprise :-)

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They are almost done blooming, the empty little spikes all had flowers earlier. The plants are about 5' tall.

Anyone know what it is, or can hazard a guess? If it's a nasty, I want to know before it sets seed, of course.

Thanks!

Joanna

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Comments (3)

timbu
15 years ago
Does this look similar?

Here is a link that might be useful: weed indeed
fammsimm
15 years ago
It looks like Wild Mustard to me, but the spikey,airy leaves are throwing me off. Maybe something in the Wild Mustard family???

Marilyn
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help me id this plant....or weed!
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Comments (8)
That's a little too vague to be useful. Any kids small enough to put random leaves in their mouth shouldn't be outside unsupervised as a high number of native and/or common landscape plants would be problematic if ingested. I've not encountered any tales of pets poisoning themselves with this ubiquitous native. These plants make berries that can look edible. If one wanted to have a pokeweed plant in a cultivated yard with young kids, it would be easy to remove any berries low enough to be reached by young hands. I did the same thing with the Nandina at my Mom's house when my son was at that age. This looks like a fenced-in yard, not where many would want to have pokeweed, regardless of their feelings about nature/native plants. Lmcdonald, is that a solid patch of pokeweed in your pic? If so, that spot looks like a good candidate for smothering but I think you would need sheet metal or something equivalently strong to do it. Cardboard/newspaper and a little mulch will stop a lot of weed infestations, but probably not mature pokeweed (coming back from adult tap roots.) Digging that all up would be a chore nobody would envy. If you decide chemical warfare is necessary, please seek instructions specific to this plant, and a product known to be effective. You will probably find some discussions about it in the weeds forum.
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please help id plant/weed?
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Comments (8)
Mary, The first one is NOT a weed. It is a type of Rudbeckia - Black Eyed Susan. The second is a Variegated Jacob's Ladder (Polemonium) as others have said. Very nice. I have them as well. There are several types - your's looks very healthy! There's been problem with some of these (bought) plants declining in the gardens after they are bought, but as I said, your's is looking good. :O) Last one is a weed. But the first one is NOT!! I tried to sign on last night and couldn't. Hope I caught you in time...
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Comments (15)
Oh boy!! Well, at this point I'm concentrating mainly on getting the garlic mustard out and only pulling others when they're right in with the GM. Hopefully the 2nd isn't as prolific as the GM, or I'll be in another world of hurt next year! I'm still dealing with the remnants of Jerusalem artichoke as well! Yeesh! OH BTW - could #1 maybe be an Actaea? I'm really hoping not to have to pull it - I've got a bit of it in there and it's actually kind of pretty in a group - I'm gonna keep an eye on it, and see if it blooms and what they look like.
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Looks like a ragwort. The genus is Senecio (or Packera) Don't recognize the species
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tradewind_64
Original Author
15 years ago
WELL...last night someone on name that plant forum indicated that it was called Yellowrocket, which led to finding that it is probably a very close relative of Yellowrocket: Wild Radish. Whis is a very close relative to Wild Mustard :-) The only reason it can't be Yellowrocket is because the stems and leaves have tiny hairs, which indicates it is Wild Radish. However. I have seen pics of Wild Radish now on Google Images that don't look like this plant, and some that show Yellowrocket looking dead-on accurate, save for the leaves. Ha. At any rate, I'm pulling them up...tis' not to be...

Thanks so much for your help, timbu and fammsimm. Now I am also familiar with two other kinds of weeds, so if I spot them, I'll know right away :-)

Joanna

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