I tend to think in terms of good weeds and bad weeds. Not bad "evil" necessarily, just in terms of what can be harmful to the environment or super-invasive and exotic.
http://npsot.org/wp/story/2016...

Well, in my opinion the term "weed" is used much too freely.
Some of my most beautiful and useful plants have the word weed in their name.

I appreciate many weeds and find them both beautiful and tasty.
and even the ''weeds'' I don't eat something else may and then I can enjoy the lovely butterflies .

I think that a drive in the country would be less interesting without weeds:
ditch lilies
mullein
Queen ann's lace
cornflowers
clover

all blooming along my roadsides today

I'm also a fan of what are commonly called "weeds". Now my idea of a weed is just something growing where I don't want it to grow! Bermuda Grass is the worst weed I know!

Some of my favorite weeds that I can think of right away:
Frostweed (both the plant and the person)
Chickweed
Dandelion
Plantain
Lambsquarters

I also love: Milkweed, Ironweed, and Smartweed.

The blogger ended his article on a bit of an ironic note... Didn't he?
I have a similar plant to bull nettle.... Cndosculous stimulosa... AKA 7 minute itch... And while it's a real pest.... I kinda do like the flowers, and it's a treat to observe the butterflies flit from one patch to the next... Doesn't matter how desperately dry it is... The cndosculous always look good... And... The gopher tortoise eat them!

Ima big fan of matelea too... But while the monarchs do lay eggs on them... I'm not sure if it's all that and a bag of chips as monarch food... Although... Doesn't seem to hurt the tussocks any... Or the milkweed bugs...

Yeah... I'm all in favor of removing the word weed from the language.... It no longer conveys information...

I reckon we needed a label for non-vegetables back when we were all subsistence farming, but calling wildflowers and vegetables... weeds... when they come up in the lawn... That's just wrong...

I totally agree with you Stone.

I want an exception for ragWEED. I can think of no virtues.

Well, they are host plants for butterflies, but I think other plants can fulfill that function without sneezing us to death

There are two WEEDS I want out of my garden. Yup. I do want them gone.

One is oxalis. It can be pretty, but the reason I want it out is that it smothers everything. If I were raising it for money, I would be a very wealthy woman.

The other one is spotted spurge. Why ? Because it bites me. I always end up with blisters wherever it touches my skin. It's worse than stinging nettle.

No, I am not going to use RU or anything like that to get rid of them, but I still don't like them.

the beautiful yellow American finches love the giant ragweed seeds and cover the plants in the late summer.
I am sure I would feel differently about the plant if I had allergies.

Giant Ragweed actually is pretty good forage for grazing animals; it's the nasty little common ragweed that seems so unnecessary to me.

While I do pull all the ragweed I see... Prior to bloom time.... You should respect that it generously waits until the end of the season before bothering us with its sexual activity.... And at my house, the deer browse it...

Plenty of other plants are also wind pollinated, the oaks and pecans and stuff in the spring... all the grasses.... All summer long...

Us gardeners in the deep south have some weeds that are actually worthy of the name.
Consider phyllanthus niruri (chamberbitter) and fatoua villosa (hairy crab weed, mulberry weed) which go from seed to flowering plant in 2 weeks...
Also consider nut sedge... One tuber can quickly cover a field in nutsedge....

And while some of that oxalis can be aggressive, due to the tuber production (pulling it merely spreads it), at least it's pretty, and edible... In fact... There's a variety known as oca... Specifically grown for tuber production.... Said to be as productive as stachys floridana... Also an aggressive spreader... But... Those tubers are tasty...

Some of us actually recognize the desirability of stealth gardens containing veggies that grow well in case of TEOTWAWKI...

While we're naming plants with weed in the name that are actually keepers...
Consider coffeeweed and camphor weed.

And... How about button weed? Host plant to the tersa moth.

There is no doubt that some plants are more helpful and beautiful than others. However, I think that all plants have a purpose.
The first one I can think of is holding the soil in place and preventing erosion.
What would the earth look like without native and wild plants?

Josephenine ...

That's why I haven't pulled all of the oxalis, which I truly hate. Until I have something to replace it, or can mulch the areas it has run amoke properly to allow other plants to become established, it does stop erosion. I just hate that it is so well established. I am transitioning my garden.

It takes time to take a garden from a "well-groomed-weed-controlled" garden that is more of a wild garden. In that process, there will be some plants that are far too invasive and will smother others. Oxalis just happens to be one of mine. I still want it gone so that others can shine.

I think even when we move towards a less "less controlled" landscaping approach we can edit the garden so that other plants can play a more significant role and serve the same purpose of erosion control than the thugs.

'' what would the earth look like without native and wild plants?
...........................................
Naked


Oh, was that a rhetorical question???

Very Funny Cinda

'' what would the earth look like without native and wild plants?
...........................................
Naked

Actually, that's true ...

When I bought my house, everything was covered with snow. I thought the house pad in the back yard was lawn. HA HA ! The joke was on me. It was covered with weed barrier and decorative rock ! When I had that scraped away, the soil, if you could call it that, would not even grow weeds. It was dead "soil". It's taken years of hauling in organic material to bring it to life. You can't buy soil up here in the mountains. I had to build the soil.

I guess in some ways, I should be grateful it can now grow weeds ... ... even oxalis ...

Has anyone checked out the weed library on this site?
Many of their so-called weeds are actually desirable at my house, and they fail to mention that there are positive qualities!

They also fail to discuss the really bad ones we have down in the gulf coast...

Who do I talk to about this?