I'm fond of artillery fern, the only time I weed it out is when I want to give my friends chickens a treat. The girls go crazy over it.

GUILTY AS CHARGED,
I can't stand manicured sterile looking yards.... I need the weeds to feel at home. When all my birds tear the weeds up and eat them I also don't feel any loss. I will scatter wild flower seeds mixed in with my grass seeds. NO I don't have a 'junk yard' here, with rusting cars up on cement blocks, just weeds and wild flowers growing everywhere.

I also have the beggar-tick growing all around the hen house, all my domestic birds love it. My birds also love the blackberries when in season. I grow lots of weedy looking plants that make seed feed for them. If I want to protect something growing ... I've learned to just fence it in.

I have open sandy areas where I can toss seeds, rake it in, and water it so my birds can scratch and dig the sprouts that come up.

Lou

I love weeds, especially the little pink flowered portulaca. My birds love it, too. They eat it up like crazy!

I also have eaten bidens pilosa, and although I didn't especially like it, I don't try to kill it. Well, no use anyway, because the vacant lot next door is full of it.

I have the artillery fern growing under my oak tree, and it somehow doesn't invade there, but comes up in strange places all over the yard.

But my favorite weed is that tiny groundcover with the white flowers with blue centers that white peacock butterflies love and breed on. I used to know the name, but can't think of it.

My lawn is actually more like a meadow than a lawn. You never know what you're going to find popping up there. I just found something that looks like a tiny yellow dayflower. So pretty and dainty.

My favorite weed is pink oxalis - I have hard time pulling it. Portulaca is also always welcome. And so is artillery fern.
Basically, anything with remotely pretty flower or greenery and that does not have thorns or overly sticky seeds.

Who here grows weeds? Who has a soft spot in their hearts and grows a plant that others consider a weed? I know I can't be the only one to do so.

Said it before, I'll say it again. I think nutsedge is beautiful, would make a great bug and disease resistant lawn once it's fully established. My neighbor, on the other hand, hates it and feels free to come into my yard and spray it with Basagran when he thinks I'm not looking...sure glad I'm growing my veggies in containers :-) :-(

From a UF link:
" Spanish needle:
It is a good butterfly plant for its white ray flowers with yellow centers are a favorites
with Sulfurs and skippers. The young foliage is a good green to add to cooked dishes.
The flowers are edible and can be used in salads or as a garnish.
The blooms can be used in tea, jelly or wine making."

The butterflies like it- good enough reason to keep it.

Thanks for the ideas about the flowers from the Spanish Needle. I will have to try them. I have tried the greens before, but was not impressed. I do love their green-ness when other things are turning brown, and the butterflies and the bees adore them. I DO NOT adore their seeds when they get stuck in my dogs' coats!
I do like to take a wait and see approach to interesting plants that come up in the yard. My husband, however, regards most anything as fair game for the lawn mower (grass, Dune Sunflowers, seedling plumerias, blueberry bushes,.....)

This is truly a funny and inspiring topic, thank you Bamboo Rabbit. I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the posts here, but I confess, I don't know what the weeds listed here look like. I probably have most of them. :)

There are many weeds that we have here that when you really look at them, they are very beautiful, but they still get yanked out of my foundation beds. One is the spurge that has multicolor spots on it, I've seen rabbits eat that. Others are Bidens, violets, wild portulaca, thistle, and yes, even sedge is beautiful and green, but all of these will completely take over if you let them. If that's what you like, who cares? I try to keep the foundation beds weed-free, and then gradually the farther from the house the more I tolerate the weeds until it gets into the woods, then nature completely wins the battle. But I detest greenbriar and skunkvine, wish I could eradicate the whole lot. I was surprised at the pretty little flowers on the skunkvine, though. Right now we have some of the wild sunflowers and goldenrod and purple astors blooming, but I don't consider those weeds.

according to what i learned in my fngla class, a "weed" is any plant where it is not suppose to be. i think, been awhile since i took that course....:) any weed that's green...flowers...good with me. most unfavorite weed..rain trees!

Weeds? What weeds? I collect wildflowers = )

Prickly poppies are 1 of my faves...

What a great post. I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't mind weed in their yard. mostly anything that's green works for me. except maybe dollarweed; I'm getting a lot of that now.

This link is fun to see how many ID photos actually match
what you think your weeds might be.
Good info on Dollarweed here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Southern Weed Alerts

Years ago there was an interesting man named Euell Gibbons. He was an exceptional gardner and writer. He said that most of us call plants weeds because we haven't yet learned what they are good for. Of course, Gibbons doubtfully never lived in Florida. I have yet to learn the use of so many plants(WEEDS)I fear I shall just pass away one day in ignorance.

greenfinger.....that was the "grapenuts" cereal guy....never knew he was into plants. just watched him jog through the woods and tell you to eat grapenuts cereal! thanks.........m

I like Spanish Needles (Bidens alba) so much I potted it up and took it with me when we moved. "Just in case" there wasn't any in my new yard. haha. true story. I also took enough other plants that we needed a second moving truck. Bamboo took up the most space.

I have purchased "weeds" from Oak Tree Farms by mail because I couldn't get them any other way. Anything for the butterflies.

And now you have mentioned it I'll try tasting Bidens and add it to salads. :-)

Hey Denise - good to hear from you again!

I think you should get the prize for taking your bidens plant with you when you moved.

We recently moved from Chokoloskee and it took us 7 extra trips to get all my plants to the new place. I brought artillery ferns and cabbage palm ferns with me (not knowing they are "weeds" up here) and the new place is loaded with the usual weeds that come from neglect and I don't know their names yet.

I'm grateful for this thread. . . .

Susie

lol, i love dollarweed and even help propagate it, keeping it damp and even fertilized. It reminds me of little lily pads.
I also like the weedy legumes and various peas. :)

Wallisadi, If your library has it, read Gibbons Book, Stalking the Wild Asparagus. It is hiughly informational and quite entertaining. He wrote other book however I cannot comment as I have never read them. Have a great Halloween, Harold

Darn, I keep hoping that someone will post pictures of the weeds, I know I have lots of weeds but I don't know what they are called.

How abt. Dandelion greens ? anybody eat them ? supposed to be really good for you.... when we lived in Canada we went out in early Spring and picked them while they were young and tender and they were delish..... have never tried them down here they seem to be more coarse... sally

Hi Susie (waving) (I don't know how to do that fancy-like icon)

Where did you move to?
Do you like it there?
I'm loving our new location (Englewood) except we're in the middle of a drought (again). It will rain buckets east and north of us but nary a drop comes here.
St. Augustine grass is removed and bahai is in along with some dune sunflower.
Everything that got moved lived including the Spanish needles :-)

Denise

Saldut, We not only ate Dandelion Greens but my grandmother made Dandelion Wine with them also. At my tender age then, I only watched my great grandfather and uncles enjoy both the greens and the wine. This was about seventy years ago in New York State near the Mass. border.

I remember cutting and eating young dandelion greens when I lived in New Hampshire. I also remember going through the woods and gathering a basket of fiddle heads in the early spring time just after the melting snow. Stir fried fiddle heads sauteed in fresh churned butter.... to die for! Lots of different yummy flavors of wild weeds back then.

Lou

will look it up...thanks for the info. didn't he meet some untimely demise.....?

He was writing a book called '173 different parts of a pine tree are edible'. I think number 174 did him in when he tried to pass the stump. (*!*)

Lou

I am obsessing about growing dandelions also I only managed to have a few survive. Apparently it helps with leaf miner control and I would take any weed anytime rather than leaf miner

The back few acres that lead to the woods are full of weeds taller than me lol. I was gonna cut them and one morning I went out there and the weed flowers were all completely covered with bees and butterflies. I figured I could live with the weeds until they freeze.

My husband loves poke. So the pokeweed gets to grow, except in places where I forbid it -- like in the front yard. He always wails a bit when I remove those.

I grew up in the Boston area. A lot of people ate dandelion salads, fiddleheads, rhubbarb pie/jelly, Quince and crab apple jelly. I think like most things, if you grow up with it, it's 'normal'. As for me, I never enjoyed rhubbarb. It's like strawberry-celery pie. Bleech.

I do remember lots of walks in the woods and finding Lady Slippers Orchids. At the time, they were quite rare. Even as children, we knew this and left them alone and only admired their beauty.

Now, you can buy them at Home Depot! Go figure!

I do not miss the cold freezing weather up there, but I do miss many things like the plants and the beautiful woodlands.

I confess. I'm one of "those people." You know, the people "real gardeners" shun, refuse to talk to, avoid at get-togethers. I have a problem.

I'm Bill and I grow wedelia (room says "Hello Bill"). It started innocently enough. Just a little ground cover under the ligustrum. It was so easy to grow. And those pretty yellow flowers, just the right touch of color.

But it spread. Slowly at first, then faster. Soon I was mowing it, spraying it with Round-Up, pulling it out. To no avail. So I gave up. It grows now and I cut it back to keep it "under control" (under control indeed, baloney, my wife says).

So if you are listening, take it from me. Don't succumb to the pretty yellow flowers, the lure of cheap and flourishing ground cover. Today I am a broken man. My life, my backyard, taken from me. I cannot win against it. Wedelia, you win, I give up.

Fleabane is my favorite. Used to grow along the roadsides here everywhere, till the county brought in sod which gave us poison ivy, virginia creeper, ailanthus, and other fun things instead. :(

Denise
I emailed you - did you get it?

I just didn't want you to think I've ignored you within this post . . .

Love ya
Susie

saintpfla,

There are a lot of things I miss about New England, but the cold and snow is not one of them. I lived in Boston for a couple of years (southie, two or three blocks south of Fields Corner when it was safe to live there in the 50's) when I worked for G.E. in Lynn. I miss the drives on the old country roads in western Mass, the covered bridges, the turning leaves in the fall, the beaches, the charter boats to go catch haddock and fishing the many fresh water lakes and ponds. So many good memories fishing with my second wife from Quincy.

Lou

I admit it, I grow Cuban buttercup and it's cousin the white one. Both bloom all year for me and give great color. I just weed out the ones I don't want. :o)

Another weed I love is fogfruit which has been replacing my lawn in areas and is delightful. Peacock butterflies use it and it survives drought, scorching sun, walking on it, etc. I'm going to dig some up and move it to other areas. It's a winner for a ground cover, mine is very low-growing and never needs mowing. It hitchhiked in with the bahia lawn last year.

Susie
I missed seeing your email but am changing over to a new computer, always traumatic. Maybe it will show up.

Denise

I love fogfruit, too (and thanks to Denise, I now know what it is) and it is all over this lawn here in Lake Placid.

I took a good look at this yard and there really isn't much grass - just lots of plants in the lawn that get mowed short, so it looks nice and green. But there are four that are blooming now - yellow, peachy-orange, blue and the tiny purple of the fogfruit plant. A nice ground cover combo that Mother Nature is planning and taking care of for me. Sure beats all the effort of a St Augustine lawn!

Denise, I will re-e you.

Susie