Thank you for the positive ID, Chris! Looks like burdock's got a lot of cool culinary and medicinal uses, too... I may have to experiment now! ^_^

.Thank you all. Yep... the most A1 were found right under two October Glory Maples. I have had these trees for 9 years (they were probably two years old or so back then), yet I had never had these seedlings under the trees before. The trees had not started flowering until last year. This year, the trees were pretty with all reddish butterfly look flowers in early spring.

The idea of an 'American Prairie Garden' popping up in places like England reminds me of a few years back when 'The Santa Fe Style' became all the rage in the US. Books were published and home & garden ideas abounded. After the new wore off, stuff was showing up at places such as Dollar Saver and Walmart, items from towels to toothbrush holders to lamps. Furniture stores entirely devoted to the SF style sprang up around here. Then the Colorado style crept in and sort of overlapped it. Pines, the log cabin-look, rustic etc. The American Prairie Look craze, if thats what it is, offers the nice perk of letting people imagine they are being ecologically friendly for a change and they can feel good for planting 'a tiny butterfly garden' to save the planet (even if other critters are not welcome). I think thats part of the 'sell'-- the Feel Good aspect. When things like gardens are merely styles, they tend to come and go, get over done, then people get tired of them and want something new. At this point they are described as 'outdated'. Anyone still doing that is sorely behind the trend. That sounds like the situation you are describing in England. Its great to visit a region that has its own authenticity and ambience, a place that looks like what you expected and different than where you live. I guess what bothers me about these trends is the way they tend homogenize the whole country and even leak out into the UK. I've mentioned several times how glad I am to see Oklahoma City adopting the so called 'American Prairie Garden'. The thing is, it should not be considered a trend toward a style, rather its a long overdue appreciation of the surrounding countryside down here. Personally I'm so tired of the boring homogenized look that is made up almost entirely of non native plants. The concerns of conservation, invasive species, growing strictly native etc that gives some people the impression that Americans are over zealous is an entirely different matter than choices of plants for landscaping and gardening. People are passionate about both subjects but they are two distinct subjects. From what I can gather, impressions people have seems to be a result of confusion over who is talking about what. When I discuss selecting plants for my garden its a different matter than my concern over some of the horrors I've seen popping up (or disappearing) in the countryside. The two things only overlap in the sense that I would avoid activities such as intentionally adding invasive species just because I selfishly liked a plant or digging up, for example, cactus in the wild because I selfishly wanted it in my garden. It doesn't mean I am a slave to local native plants only in my own yard although that is exactly what I want to be able to keep seeing in the countryside, so I try to be careful and hope others are careful too.

Yes, there is a bleeding heart in the back. She has been removing invasives, like buckthorn seedlings, and replacing them with natives or bleeding hearts. She loves those bleeding hearts. I do too.