Single Specimen - Globe Thistle. grows to about 7' tall and has big thorns. The roots go way into the ground, so it's almost impossible to kill. This plant is actually sold at garden centers.
Group - Crabgrass. Once established, crowds out the other grasses and produces millions of seeds.

Wandering jew vine it is horrible spreads like mad and will even grow in a trash can and on the weed pile. How it ever got here I havn't a clue but wish it was gone. Dollar weed is bad but wjv is much worse.

Shotweed. No matter how many you pull there is always one hiding under a leaf somewhere shooting out seeds all over the place. They will even continue to develop seed if pulled up and left laying on the ground. I always wad them up and toss them way out in the yard away from the beds, just in case. They are attractive little plants, but they will take over everything if allowed to.

Bermuda grass. I can't for the life of me get it to grow in my lawn, but darned if I don't pull out bucketfulls every time I weed the garden.

Bermuda grass!!! Hate the stuff.

The worst here is the one we call "hitch-hikers" but I think it is correctly called Burdock. It's horrible on dogs with curly coats. The plants are nearly impossible to kill but I'm gradually making progress by cutting off the immature seed heads which are bagged and sent to the landfill. At least there's no new ones growing this way and maybe the others will eventually die of old age. :-)

Many

It is probably the stuff I call Stickiweed. It has tiny hairs that make the stems, leaves, and seed balls stick to all things fibrous. It is fun to have Stickiweed fights, where everybody throws the stuff on everybody else, but when you're serious it is SO annoying.

Grass! Anything that doesn't make some sort of flower is a most worthless plant IMHO - especially when it tries to grow in the flower bed!

Violet Girl;I think your'stickiweed' is also called 'bed straw' I incountered some just this morning while I was out pruning some of the over-hanging limbs back,so I can ride my mower past them without knocking my head off!! It's hard to get rid of when you're trying to throw it in a brush pile!!
My least favorite weed is anything that's growing where it's not supposed to , and is hard to remove.

Polygonum convolvulus, AKA black bindweed. Luckily the battle was at my Mom's house and she just moved. My only worry now is that it will follow her!! Yes, it is that strong and vigorous.

Aegopodium follows a close second. We had to leave most of her perennials in the largest bed (that hadn't already had the life squeezed out of them) because this stuff was so enmeshed in them. It would have been impossible to separate anything from it's evil death grip.

Horse tail, don't know the botanical name, they say it is the oldest weed known, I believe it, you cannot kill this stuff, but I hear there is a concoction somewhere that you can make a tea to spray roses for blackspot. Just need to find the receipe cause I have buckets full.

Another vote for Bermuda Grass. A Pox upon it.

Bindweed is the bane of my existance. It's just plain evil. Dswan, what is a tam?? I'm willing to try it!!! Round-up slows it down, but really doesn't seem to stop it. Once I get everthing I want dug out of my back perennial bed I'm toasting the whole thing with 24D. Then I might even pave over the spot. :) Seriously, I'm thinking of putting a patio where this particular garden is.

Cleavers aka Bedstraw, Stickyweed, is another problem, but at least with a bit of weeding, you can control it a bit. You just have to get to it before it sets seed. I'm going to try preen on a bed of ditch lily that has cleavers through it to see if that helps keep it down. Who knows.

Diann
IA Z5a

Nutsedge. Even products that kill Bermuda grass cannot kill it. Digging it only multiplies it.

Another vote for bindweed! I'm fighting that battle currently. Also dandilions.

Bindweed and pokeweed--truly satanic. Every day when I get home from work, I do a bindweed check on the the garden plot next to the driveway. I do not want those things to set flowers and seeds! It's an ongoing task.

pricker plants. I have no idea if they flower or not, cause I never let them get big enough to try, but they wrap their loving little tendrils around all my nice azalea bushes and choke them to death!. They grow on great big woody roots with rhizomes, and if you don't get them all, they are back in 3 weeks. I haven't tried vinigar yet, but I'm going to, right now.

Euphorbia macculata and Portulaca. Once started in the garden I have them for life!

Ankrara's Hobby Corner

Poison ivy. Nasty, awful stuff. (spit, spit, growl, growl). I'm horribly allergic to it and I'm having a tough time getting rid of it. I even get it without realizing that I have any in my garden. PI and bindweed are the only reasons that I would use herbicides.

Morning Glory, AKA bindweed. I'm originally from another state where 'Morning Glory' means only one thing: the nastiest, most difficult weed around. When people here talk of their beautiful Morning Glory flowers I cringe because of early childhood trauma trying to eradicate the wild type. I can't even plant the ornamental because I'm afraid it will escape and take over my garden.

Tie vote - nutgrass & Bermuda. They test my patience on a daily basis.

Creeping Charlie, aka ground ivy. I think this one is actually sold as well. I'd gladly sell mine!

Ragweed. Aside from the obvious pestiness of weeds, I'm violently allergic to ragweed, and if there's any around (even in a neighbor's yard), it makes my gardening time miserable. Saturday I was out in the garden, and after having to get up a third time to go in the house for Kleenex, I walked all around the yard until I finally found a regweed by the fence on the side of the garage. I knew there was one around, even though I take all my allergy medication.

Hydrocotyle because it crawls through all my small, shady treasures and is a Monster to eradicate from any shady, damp site.

Calystegia sylvatica - great bindweed. That lover of silky soils and underground paths through, over, however any plant in its way. A layer of untreated sawdust and 'up she rises' to be peeled off in long, tangled sheets - leaving just a smidgeon for next time. About the only thing I ever used that gave it indigestion (and Tradescantia fluminensis) was paraquat, but I think it's been removed from our market. I think I've outgrown the 'scorched earth' philosophy for weed control, though. Fork power and soil amendment is good enough.

muscadine vine, no question

Purple loosestrife. It is doing to northeast wetlands what kudzu did to the south. Also oriental bittersweet vine. All our fallow fields are full of the stuff. Seeds copiously, birds excrete the seed all over the place. The orange roots can run for yards underground, and grip the soil for dear life. Can't dig them out, since they weave in and out of the root systems of everything you want to save. The only solution is to get a hold of a root and PULL. Every year I risk pulling my back out pulling bittersweet.

Bermuda grass. Is there any way to get rid of this without digging up the entire area 2 feet deep? Every 2 weeks? There's bermuda grass in the lawn so it's a constant battle for me keeping it out of flower and vegetable beds.
Dishonorable mention: poison ivy.

Oh tell me the horsetail I JUST put in- in a POT will be ok! I'd hate to have invited the devil himself into my garden.

I hate the thistles that put giant burrs on my dog and horses. I have to use WD40 to slick them out and the pricks they make in my skin fester for weeks.

I also hate morning glories!! Dagnabit! They crawled 30 feet up to my power lines, they strangled everything in sight and they make me itch. I've now been battling their spawn for 2 years-

Dandylions and rhizomy native grasses are also very time consuming and don't always go away when dosed with boiling water and /or roundup.

Karen

I have enjoyed looking through this list of least favorite weeds and see that mine, after 10 months of posting, is still missing  quack grass! A close 2nd is bindweed, aka morning glory. I struggle continually against these 2 in the perennial beds. They are the reason I prefer to mostly grow annuals even tho I realize that this is a copout.

Digging out the beds (carefully) each year isnÂt as effective against bindweed as the quack grass. IÂve come to realize that the dark roots of bindweed are very easy to miss, whereas the quack grass has rhizomes that look like nice fat bean sprouts (I wonder if theyÂd be good in a salad??).

So, I miss some of the bindweed even amongst the annuals. For me, the way to deal with it is to let it grow a little and then spray with round-up. It will probably need another spraying in a couple weeks and maybe even a third! By this time, itÂs probably necessary to use a jar of herbicide and a paintbrush because the other plants are large and vulnerable to overspray. Trying to pull it out is just left to the vegetable garden where I don't spray.

I can also use round-up for bindweed in the perennials so my real problem there is the quack grass. I just canÂt get it all out without digging every thing out and damn near sifting through the soil. But, left alone, it would probably crowd out just about anything.

Digit

Sandbur, hands down. Even Poison Ivy can be attractive as long as it's up out of the way, but sandbur is just a vile, noxious, painful pest.

Have to agree with Kathryn (kab121170) from Indiana and say Posion Ivy. Hate it, I will probably break out now from just typing the words on here so I'm now leaving to go get some Ivy Rid!

Bindweed and goatheads (I call them devil thorns). I moved from a house infested with goatheads only to move into a place infested with bindweed...sigh. At least you can walk across the bindweed with out getting a quater inch spike in your foot!

BURDOCK! I'm with Dianna in WA, I have never met a weed with such long roots, it is impossible to dig them out. Once they go to seed, forget it, I swear when you walk past they jump off the plant and onto you. They get all over the cats and dogs (and kids), I've even had to pick them out of the feathers of my ducks.

Hey cheerpeople your horsetail will be o.k. as long as you keep it in the pot. Its called Equisetum. It can be a nasty bugger though if it gets loose. But it doesn't hold a candle to bermuda grass. That stuff goes by runners and by seed. Only way to kill it is to lay a tarp over the area for a year or two.

Oh ya how about this one: Phyllostaches aurea AKA Golden Bamboo. Somebody let that stuff loose around the Trinity river area in south eastern texas. The tarp is no match for it. It just shoots right through!!!!

Morning glory(bindweed)!!!! It IS the devil. xanadu, I'm LIVING a childhood trauma(I'm only 13). This stuff wont die and the worst part is my parents make me go out and pull it anyway, I'm convinced that this just makes it spread. I am willing to try 'domesticated' morning glory but, and how's this for irony, I keep killing it!!!