Yeah, that's my plan, too. Really...at least now that you gave me the idea, that's what I'll say! ;)

I have a lovely Venus' Looking Glass that came up in my garden. They grow in our back field and I've always loved them I've got a new computer and I'm not that good at posting pictures anyway, but cant do it until I learn more.I think the lady bug lure is a good idea,there are several weeds here that are benefical.
roseberri

A lot of times when I'm weeding if I see weeds that are being eaten I leave them. I figure if the insects (or animals) are eating those plants then they'll stay away from my other plants (hopefully?) Well, that's my plan and I'm sticking with it!

I have lots of "weeds" (which are really just plants that grow where we don't want them to) that I leave around my yard, for various reasons. Some attract lots of bees and butterflies, some look really nice, and some fill in areas that would be very difficult to grow anything in.

I was just reading yesterday that the type of weeds that grow in your yard can tell you what your soil is lacking. Nature will try to heal and restore itself by growing weeds that replenish missing nutrients. Interesting stuff!

The only 'weeds' I'm deliberately leaving are peony poppies, columbine, flax, and a few other perennial flower seedlings. Will eventually transplant the best. Other *real* weeds I'm leaving only because I haven't been able to get them all yet cause it's been too wet.

Not planning on leaving any weeds here. I see them and I pull them.

I started out deadheading iris, then suddenly I'm pulling weeds and have been at it all morning. Since we had a good rain last night, the ground is saturated so they are easy to pull - but oh so many of them. I finally took the weed eater to a big patch of tough grasses and misc.weeds between a border and the privet hedge. Cut them suckers to the ground and beyond. Of course, it will only encourage a nice crop later but it looks great right now!

I don't notice them being eaten by bugs, that would be a blessing; but then again they would also look kind of ugly for awhile. Binder Weed is rampant this year.

I have tons of weeds and pull probably 95% of them (when I can get to them) but the few I leave, in the back of the beds, look pretty good...so far :)

With my cottage style garden...shrub roses, bee balm, cosmos, etc. in the back, a few weeds blend in okay, especially the ones with interesting leaves or small flowers. In the front, not so much, but I'm mainly trying to keep the aphids off the roses.

Last year, I had tons of weeds in the kitchen garden, so I went and got ladybugs and brought them over to the roses. Since the kitchen garden is not a weed patch this year (at least not right now LOL) I thought leaving a few select weeds next to the roses...might bring the ladybugs in all by themselves. We'll see what happens!

Serenae- Very interesting...thanks for sharing :)

Cyn- Glad I could help! LOL

Thyme- Good point about the bugs.

Roseberri- I'm looking forward to seeing your pictures.

Schoohouse- What's binder weed?

We have some weeds here that are edible. Purslane is supposed to be a "superfood" and can be put on salads, etc. I decided to leave it last year even though it's known to run rampant. It was in an area with a lot of annuals so earlier this year that part of the garden was bare. I've planted some perennials seedlings there now. Lo and behold, I see this morning what looks like a huge carpet of purslane just starting to peek out of the ground. I wondered where it had gone and why it hadn't come back, and now I know. It was apparently in the soil making tons and tons of babies. I'm gonna have to eat a lot of salads this year. That stuff is like weeds on uranium fuel! Lambs quarters is also edible, so it makes for more enjoyable weeding! Kind of more motivating if what you're pulling can go on tonight's dinner. Beyond those, and wild ox-eye daisy which really doesn't deserve a weed title, I pretty much pull the rest. I'd like to actually take some wild strawberries and move them into a bed because the kids love to eat the strawberries. In the garden now they just spread--not enough sun to make good fruit but more than enough of everything else to make more runners.

Quack grass is the one weed I wish I could blow to smithereens.

Lass, Binder Weed is a morning glory type vine with a similar bloom that is usually white or white with a pink tinge. It is determined and will wrap around anything in order to reach the sun. Farmers hate it.

Which reminds me of something that happened years and years ago not long after I moved here. At that time, the fields up and down the road had alot of binder weed, but one time something caught my eye halfway to the center of one field. It was a beautiful double pink bloom of something I couldn't make out. When I went to investigate, here it was binder weed, only a mutant form - double pink! Of course I brought it home. ha. I planted it in a small flower bed in front of the house and it grew there for quite a few years before it disappeared. I always looked forward to seeing it come back in the Spring and it never went crazy spreading all over the place. I just happened to think of this, nice memory.

I thought that might be a wild morning glory...we call it bindweed, around here. I have a few areas, where it comes in and I try to pull it out as much as possible. Pretty flowers, but they'll grow up anything...even other weeds! LOL

The double pink sounds very pretty and I would have put that in my garden, too :)

Years ago someone told me to leave a couple of dandelions in the garden. They are aphid magnets. Just keep them dead headed.
Works!

Uh - no. I'll pass on the dandelions. :)

Well, if you count native plants as weeds then I surely do. The late spring woodland wildflowers are too lovely to pull, so I leave them around the perimeter in addition to some areas left native in the middle of a long border or the side of a bed. That way my informally planted beds blend right into the existing vegetation adding a touch of color to the various shades of green.

I do pull all the dandelion, dock, plantain, creeping buttercup, & herb Robert or stinky Bob an invasive weedy geranium I find in my cultivated areas.

One of my summer projects is to pour myself a cup of fresh picked herbal tea & pour the rest of the kettle on the weeds in the driveway.

My biggest problem are baby trees. We have so many popping up this time of year from the seeds from our trees. In fact tonight I had to get the spade out and dig 2 that had gotten large enough I couldn't pull them. Grrrr...I can fill a 5 gallon pail with no trouble at all. Just need to get at them when they are little!

Does boiling water really work? I was going to go buy Roundup today, but I might set the kettle on the stove and try that first. Just one dose on each weed? How long does it take to kill the weed?

A friend uses a weed killer in full strength and just puts a dot of it on each weed. She puts it in a very small spray bottle. If any gets on a desirable plant by accident, she just picks that leaf off.

These weed killers have growth hormones and the weeds grow themselves to death.

I have done this with hackberry saplings. Also on any plants that are invasive, that someone was "kind enough" to give me.

-LL, lots of ladybugs here this year too! Just yesterday I counted ten of em' on the golden hops vine!! Maybe it is wishful thinking, but the past two years I have gone fully organic with lawn and garden, so perhaps that is why I see more?

Back to the main question...I tend to pull most of the weeds. Only ones I keep are white clover (NOT that ugly low growing yellow clover) in the lawn, feverfew as a filler in some beds, and then the various weeds that spring up in the pathways. I REALLY hate weeding the pathways, lol.
That bindweed is horrible. I get a lot of it, but often times there will be one growing under a plant and you don't see it until it has twirled up the plant and starts blooming!! Ugg...
CMK

I ended up buying Roundup and poisoned them earlier this afternoon. I admit I use it because it's fast acting and does the job. Hate putting that stuff in the dirt, but mostly it's between paver stones.

A little spot on my chin is itching....speaking of poison, I think it may be poison ivy. That's another weed I battle constantly, but I've noticed for the past two years I've gotten the upper hand - finally - on the patches along the property line at the edge of the field. Some of the leaves are as big as your hand! Every once in awhile I see small plants of it growing in my beds or around the house. A solution esp. for Poison Ivy and Poison Oak works the best.

Biodiversity is the name of the game or Integrated Pest Management so yes I do. Many weeds bring in the beneficial insects - I do try and keep them in select areas and not in the main gardens. There is a saying that one man's weed in another man's flower. If a plant is very invasive I will control it - many times in a container. Poke weed is allowed to grow in the back of our yard - birds LOVE the berries - many of the grasses grown in clumps on the border of the property for the birds. We do live in a rural area where houses are 2 or more acres apart and there is plenty of space. Most of my gardening is done for wildlife anyways.....

Lynne

To answer schoolhouse's question about using boiling water on weeds...
Repeated applications will probably be necessary especially for perennial weeds such as dandelions.

My plan is to use the boiling water & what lingers will need to be pulled, but should be easier to get out. I'll probably have my family help with some some pulling before we play a lawn game. More hands!

So far plantain, grass, & some other weeds just sprouting up are turning brown. I think I have a new hobby. He, he. Not the fastest weed control method with a 1 quart teapot.

some people use vinegar but i havnt tried it yet. i think it may be a more concentrated vinegar that you might have to find at a nursery or call around for,
or search for the info on these garden forums.
way better than putting money in monsanto's pocket and their weed-killer, that causes birth defects, into your ground.
min

I always leave some Queen Anne's lace in my garden, I love it with the day lilies. I have some plants that are several years old and huge. Ditto with goldenrod, I have a few plants that are beautiful golden fireworks in the fall.

I let a tall Missouri primrose stay this year, kind of an ugly plant but it seems to be a trap plant for Japanese beetles. They are eating that and leaving the rest of the garden alone, so it stays, ugly and all. I have a trap about 5' away from it.

There are some commelina (dayflower) plants that I let stay in the edge of my perennial bed. They seem to be a trap for something, maybe flea beetles, but as long as they are able to eat that, they leave my perennials alone.

Some of the tall daisy fleabane give my borders a look of baby's breath, (which I can't seem to keep alive long enough to bloom). It looks wonderful with blackeyed susans or the tall wild blue campanula.

Wild mullen is a great architectural plant, with its furry leaves and tall spikes of yellow flowers. And moth mullen, what can I say, pretty yellow flower spikes in the bed with holly hocks or tall phlox, coneflowers, spiderwort or the aforementioned Queen Anne's lace.

I still maintain that wildflowers are just weeds with pretty faces.

I have wild violets that sometimes show up in the gardens. For the most part I leave them. If I were lucky enough to have Queen Anne's Lace, Fleabane or Milkweed, I would leave those, as well.
-Sprout

Not quite what the OP was referring to, but I have lots and lots of weeds,grasses and wild flowers I let run riot in parts of the orchard. That doesn't mean I don't have a certain amount of control of what grows there. Brambles and thistles are allowed, but in certain areas only. Bind weed and Virginia Creeper grow in the big brush pile only because I can't pull it effectively like I do anywhere else. I do resort to a weed killer some years when it is epidemic there!

One of several paths through the weed/wild flower area of the orchard:
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Flea bane and chickory:
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Flea bane, chickory, Queen Anne's lace (not blooming yet),golden rod coming on,ect. Plus some perennial wild flowers.
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I got down in the back for about 2 weeks and in that time Queen Anns Lace took over All my flower beds and since then its been raining every other day or in upper 90's,imberable to go out and work. I could cry I looked out today and like Mosswitch they did look pretty mixed in with my coneflowers but I don't want it in my rose garden.

{{gwi:691382}} lavender lass this is the best I can do, this is a picture of my "weed" from last year. My new security system wont let me put my new pictures in my photobucket site!
roseberri