Me thinks it's a pretty weed. :) Broadleaf plantain.

Ginny

Oh! Thanks so much, Ginny! Now I know.... :-)

Maybe I should replace it with a broad leaf pretty perennial, such as a hosta....

Thanks again!

It isn't a weed if you like it. By the looks of it seeding has already begun so you can appreciate it for years to come.

I do feel your urge to shovel prune though.....

SCG

northspruce, I hear ya! The only "weed" that I have eaten so far is dandelion greens, and it's NOT from my yard! LOL! It was in some kind of fancy restaurant - how ironic, right!? LOL

SCG - I need to hire you as my psychologist! Yeah, I am about to indulge in my SPD soon....!!!

Doesn't matter if you like it or not - definitely a weed! Leave it there and you'll have millions. Ask me.... LOL

Plantain is definitely a weed, I would get rid of it...no sense inviting trouble.

Good thing you asked about it here, ostrich...on the Weeds forum you would have been told how nutritious weeds are and that if you dared to spray with a herbicide, you will grow two heads. I'm not a fan of spraying with chemicals but some of those eco-wingnuts make me shake my head.

Oh my! SCG is going to laugh his head off now - after reading your posts, I just went straight out there and S.P.'d that thing!!!!!!!!!!!! Now it's gone.... thank goodness it rained and rained this afternoon, so the soil was soft and fluffy and it took me no time or effort to S.P. it. DONE! LOL

Donna, I had no idea that there's a Weeds Forum there? I am curious now - do people there want to learn about getting rid of weeds, or do they discuss about the unexpected benefits of weeds???

I am like you too - I do not like to use chemicals, but I will use it judiciously to enhance my life.... :-)

Thanks everyone, for enabling me to indulge in my S.P.D.!!!

My favourite thing about plantains is that they are a little tough to pull but they come out cleanly. I appreciate that in a weed. Have I ever mentioned I actually really love weeding? :D

ostrich,

Most people who ask questions on that forum just want to know what it is and how to get rid of it. If they are lucky, they get someone knowledgeable who will tell them...however, there are some on a crusade to eliminate ALL forms of herbicides and pesticides.

The worst are the ones who advocate eating the weeds and chastise anyone for wanting to get rid of them...imo, those are the ones who have given up on their gardens and now think..if you can't beat 'em, eat 'em. :)

Thank goodness we don't live in Ontario, where there is a ban on these products...mind you, it really doesn't affect me too much since I am a tenacious weeder...I like to dig them out and not let them get out of hand in the first place.

Now you will just have to take advantage of Floral and Hardy's fall hosta sale. :) Just got the email today. :)

I have pretty much every kind of weed known to zone 3 and then some! Plantain are plentiful in this old yard. Right up there competing with the thistles. Maybe I should start harvesting them for medicinal purposes........I hear I can pretty soon obtain a license for the really good ones. ;p

And the dogs would fflllyyy over the fence :)

Ginny

I find plantain to be one of the easiest weeds to pull. The trick is to wait until the soil is moist, the weed is about half the size of your hand, grip around the whole thing at the soil line, pull, and voila :)

Yeah don't ever mention things like UpRound or glyphosate or two-four-dee, the crazies will come out in full force.

I'm quite ambivalent about herbicides. I don't use them near anything I eat. I feel guilty spraying them on my gardens because I have native bees that burrow in the soil. I don't know if they hurt the bees or not.

But there's no other way of controlling creeping blue bellflower, so I give all seedlings I find a shot of RU once a year. And when I turn lawn into new garden beds, I find that tilling/digging destroys the structure of the soil. The one bed that I dug has horrible, hard soil, whereas the ones that I edged and treated with RU have really nice soil and no residual grass. I also can't do lasagne beds on the scale that I need, and they don't eliminate quack grass. So RU it is.

Hi Ginny,

Thanks for the tip on the hosta sale! I am very interested - is that the Fundy Beauties website? Or is it a different one please?

I just went to the Fundy Beauties website and didn't see any sale though??? Perhaps that was the wrong site that I went to?

Thanks again!

Floral and Hardy. :)

http://www.floralandhardy.ca/

Ginny

Get rid of plantain. Might look nice with just a few plants, but the flowers and seeds are so inconspicuous on plantain that they easily go un-noticed or at least seem like no haste is needed to remove them, and the next year you have a serious problem.

I think the funniest part about the whole thing is you already have something in a pot right there to replace it! So what is in that pot :-)

I will use 2-4D on my lawn my problem now is you can only buy it in liquid and over spray scares the crap out of me. I need to find a different application method or go to AB and get some granular.

SCG

^Looks like a globeflower in that pot...you wouldn't have anything to do with that purchase, hmmm?

ostrich,

If you like the look of that weed, maybe get some hostas - after all, they are called plantain lilies in the UK.

Plantian For the Win!!!

{{gwi:770998}}

Part of my large collection.

SCG

And here i was thinking about taking a picture of my collection.... LOL

I take it we can't delete a post, eh? Was hiccuping.

This post was edited by marciaz3 on Wed, Aug 6, 14 at 20:23

Oh my goodness. SCG, you are so BAD!!! NO! I did not buy a replacement plant and then ask you guys for the opinion!!! Yup, your sharp eyes surely picked up a potted perennial nearby - that was the Trollius Golden Queen that Donna correctly identified! (Go, Donna!). However, it was supposed to be planted in the location NEXT to the plaintain weed, and not in place of it. Take a look at what I just took this evening:

SEE! The Trollius is next to that "hole" where the plaintain was. I agree that it would look nice to have a hosta there. :-p

BTW, because I had bought this Trollius (on clearance, of course! LOL) already, but I was wondering if it should go here, or where that helenium was (hence my question about Trollius in the other thread), so I had not planted it yet. Then once I put it next to the geranium "kashmir white", I just knew that it had to be planted in this spot, next to dear plaintain (which has since been S.P.'d! LOL)

Alright, SCG, what else did you spot in my yard!? Geez.... LOLOLOL

marcia, I think that we should start a "Far North Gardening - WEED" sub-forum. How about that!? Then we can all show off our treasured collections!!! Mind you, our dear friends in the British province may have other ideas as to what the "weed" forum will be about.... :-) OOPS! SCG already is showing us some.... but it's real weed! LOL

Yeah, i could post pictures of my flower beds pre-weeding. Or of my vegetable garden today. I went away for a week and all hell broke loose in there! LOL

Oh yes, marcia, I completely sympathize - one goes away for a week and all hell breaks lose in the yard!!! Why can't weed be good looking so we will keep them!? LOL

Some of them are good-looking, and i say, "Oh, you're cute! I'll let you grow!"

Famous last words. LOL

LOL..... As I stated before, it is not a weed if you want it there. As you can see I have a very nice collection of so called 'weeds' that serve there purpose. They are green and my driveway is gravel, win, win,...

I did, however, comeback with a few plants today. Thanks, hack, cough, hack, to tworosz for the campanula 'freya' idea but now I have one and also the other folks that said lilies were always the answer as I have a couple of them, too.....

The Monadara 'Petite wonder' was all me enabled by YOU!! lol!!

I might have a doctorate in this but it does not me I am not susceptible to it....hence the gravity of the condition!!!

Ostrich I just may have to come and visit to make sure you are safe to society. I would forgo travel costs for my hourly rate. (I am tricking myself to go to the hell above earth)

SCG

Oh marcia, how we get fooled by these pretty weeds sometimes, eh!? Just like how I was mesmerized by this dear plaintain for a while.... LOL!

SCG, I want to see your new plants!!!!!!!! See, I am not the only sick one here LOL! Now, the Monarda "Petite Wonder" is indeed a nice one! :-)

YAY! SCG is coming to town.... :-)

Obviously my spelling and grammar suffers when I am at my weakest. DOH!!!

Monarda was, yet another, impulse buy LOL!

SCG

I've been fooled many times. Tried to grow columbines in one bed. No go, but a couple of wild ones came up. Well, bonus, right? WRONG! I also let some kind of wild euphorbia grow in one bed before i decided to get rid of it just in case. Too late - i see several of its descendants every year now. Then there are things like verbascum that i would never get deadheaded fast enough. And the creeping bellflower that i was warned about. And the oxalis that turned up somehow and has spread into almost every bed in spite of me trying to rip out all of it. Sigh...

SCG, you have a doctorate? Should we be calling you Dr. SCG?? LOL

This post was edited by marciaz3 on Thu, Aug 7, 14 at 9:57

Yes marciaz3 I have a doctorate, while honorary and from my own university it is printed on expensive paper.

If you are thinking of a hosta there may I suggest 'September Sun' or 'Blue Hawaii' The first has nice green tone that would compliment what you have and the other a deep blue overtone that would also fit in well.

Well off to the garden to try and find a spot to plant the new acquisitions.

SCG

If you are serious about planting a hosta in the hole, have a look at Golden Tiara, a smaller but very nice and tough hosta that would be pretty much of a color match to the sedums and compatible with the foliage of the globe flower and the geranium.

SCG and OldDutch, thanks for the hosta suggestion. Yes, I am serious about putting a hosta there, so I appreciate your recommendations, and will look into them. Thank you!

If it's full sun, you might have an issue with some hostas. There are some that will tolerate more sun than others.

Some that I have in my yard: Twilight, Liberty, June, and about thirty more...if you think you have PAD now, wait until you start buying hostas!

Lol Donna, but people 'collect' them. Would you be shocked if I said my 'collection' doubled this year?

SCG