Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with weeds

Thorny, sharp-leaved plant with yellow flowers?

warble — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:08:05 -0800

I (foolishly) let a plant with thorns and sharp leaves get rather large next to my house. Now I'm finding it tough to tear it all out because it's so well established. Can anybody help me identify the plant so I can try to figure out if I'm killing enough of it so that it won't come back? I live in Colorado. A picture of the plant is here and a close up of the yellow flowers/leaves is here. The leaves are a shiny green with sharp, pointed edges. The stems are thick and woody and yellow inside, with thorns. They are a couple feet tall now. I can't get all the roots up - I'm digging down a bit before cutting it, though, and I just had the idea that I could spray the cut root with a bit of Roundup too. Should that kill everything?

My lawn! My perfect lawn! It's... under attack.

kbanas — Sat, 11 May 2013 08:26:50 -0800

So, about a year and a half ago, we bought a house! Awesome. For the first time, I have a back yard and a front yard and a lawn and... stuff, and I don't know, maybe because I'm old and boring now, I've started to give a crap about making my lawn look nice. Something is really starting to piss me off... We're in Michigan, if that helps from a geographical perspective.

Here's a wide shot of the scene of the battle. This is the foe. And this. And this.

My first thought was my old nemesis, Glechoma hederacea, or plain old ground ivy, but it doesn't seem quite right. The leaves don't look the right shape, and each of these little buggers seems autonomous, as opposed to being part of some kind of hive mind.

The other crazy idea I had is that maybe the seeds from the tree were falling down and germinating and sprouting, but that's crazy, right? .....Right?

Other thoughts? I just want to know what it is. So help me identify, hive mind!

Help me help my yard

Weeping_angel — Sun, 05 May 2013 14:41:49 -0800

I've recently moved from renting an apartment in a complex to renting a privately-owned duplex. It has a little (8 ft by about 15 ft) yard-ish thing right now that I would like to transform into a real yard. The owners won't pay for it, but would be fine with whatever I do to it. The problem is, right now the yard is completely overrun with weeds; everything else gets choked out by them. I don't know what kind of weeds, there's a variety of them. The other problem is that I live in Phoenix and the ground is very hard and dry so pulling the weeds by hand is going to be... difficult if not impossible. I've seen previous yard questions, but I am a special desert-dwelling snowflake and a little bit of a hippy, so I'm looking for more ideas than the "poison the whole thing" that I see in some of the other questions and also Phoenix-specific advice. So, really, my question has two parts: how do I get rid of the weeds and then how can I plant something in their place and get it to flourish. I don't want to use chemical weed-killers if I don't absolutely have to, but I'm not sure how else to make them go away. In a perfect world I'd have grass, but that seems overly difficult and quite frankly a little irresponsible in the desert so I'm looking for some sort of drought-tolerant groundcover plant that ideally I can walk on barefooted comfortably.

I love this place and plan on living here for the forseeable future, so I'm opposed to spending a little money on getting this done, but funds are limited. The way I see it, on a scale from "just pay someone a bunch of money to deal with it" to "dig out all the weeds myself by hand under the hot Phoenix sun", I'm looking for something in the middle.

Also, when would the best time to do all of this be? The weeds are all currently dead for the summer, so would it be better to deal with it all now? Or would this be a bad time to try to get my groundcover growing? And with the heat and the dryness, the soil/dirt/whatever is very hard-packed so should I till it? The internets seem to think that tilling might just dig up new weed seeds. Or just dump a bunch of good soil over everything and sufficate the weeds? But will they just poke through the new soil?

Basically, I have a overgrown weedy lot and no idea at all how to turn it into a yard. Please advise.

(Oh, and it's small enough that I'm totally willing to water it, so that's not a problem, but can you also reccommend non-grass drought resistant groundcover plants? Thanks!)

Can you identify this plant?

New England Cultist — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 15:03:56 -0800

Can you identify this plant? I recently moved into a new place with a very large garden. The grounds are weeded over somewhat, and I'm making a concerted effort to de-weed everything and pull out things that are encroaching where they shouldn't be.

This plant grows at the back of the house, from underneath the back porch steps. I have no idea what it is. If it's a weed it's coming out.

PHOTOS

Brightening up a dreary corporate parking lot - what is it?

ryanshepard — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:47:44 -0800

Can anyone identify this plant? It's growing on the edge of a parking lot in Largo, MD.

Mystery weed ID

ryanshepard — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 10:20:22 -0800

I need help identifying this plant: photo 1 / photo 2. It's growing on the edge of a parking lot in Largo, MD, USA.

What are these plants in in my yard?

TeknoKid — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 08:37:32 -0800

What are these plants in in my yard? [Jun 4-1] [Jun 4-2] [Jun 4-3] [Jun 26] [Jul 7] In the beginning of June I noticed several unidentified plants growing in my lawn. I left them alone to see what they would turn into and now, a month later, I still haven’t been able to find anyone who can identify them. Several of us have searched Google images using various descriptions without luck.

There are about 5 plants spaced out across about 10 feet. I suspect that squirrels may have planted them. This is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin if that helps.

Does anyone know what these might be?

Is this a weed or what?

gwenlister — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 06:31:05 -0800

Weed or flower filter: I was on vacation for a week or so and now there is a bunch of stuff here that I can't identify. HELP! I feel like a tool for even having to ask this, I generally have a lot of luck with plants and my gardens have generally been gorgeous and turned out great. This is my first time doing a full size bed, though, and this is a virgin bed and its first plantings ever. It is also my first time planting bulbs, and I don't really know what the bulbs I planted should be looking like. Also, in my enthusiastic state while I was planting, I didn't really keep track of where I was planting things.

Pictures of the plants in question:
Picture 1
Picture 2

Things I know I planted:
Glads
Dahlia
anemone

I also got a big 'ol bag of a couple types of bulbs, but I can't remember what were included in the bag....

Please help me before I accidentally pull up a plant that I meant to grow. :(

No, not THAT kind of weed.

ApathyGirl — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 16:33:00 -0800

Random plant in the garden: Weed or ...? I have planted a variety of seeds in this little bit of earth over the last couple of years, and had little to no success in growing anything. Last year I used some planting mix to try to grow some carrots and flowers, and a single pretty flower shrub has successfully bloomed. (Yay!)

This spring, I had a new sprout, so I've been nurturing it, but I have NO IDEA what it is. It doesn't look like any of the other weeds in our yard. Its also worth noting that my father tends to recycle planting mix by dumping failed attempts at sprouting seeds back into the container, so who knows what this could be!
If it matters/helps, I live in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley (northern Los Angeles).

Close, from the side.
Top-down shot.

Can you help me identify this plant/weed (found in New England)?

jeremias — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 07:49:26 -0800

Can you help me identify this plant/weed (found in New England)? I have the feeling that this is a super common weedy plant thing, I just don't know what it is.

Here are some photos including a detail of the leaves

For perspective, these are about 2-3 feet tall, grow very fast (which is why they are treated as weeds here) and the distinguishing characteristic is they are hollow inside which I tried to document in the third photo but failed to do so.

Plant or weed identification time.

lbo — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 10:26:34 -0800

What is this plant (or weed) growing in my back yard? It has multiple, thick stems with tiny thorns, green leaves that turn light green/reddish as the plant gets bigger, and a big root system with roots that are woody and slightly rubbery. It does not have any tendrils or flowers and left to grow, it begins to resemble a small tree. I have six of these plants (or weeds?) growing in my backyard. They have appeared each of the three summers I've lived in my home--I started with just three and three more have appeared in the same areas. So I have two distinct locations with three of these things.

I have checked standard weed and plant identification sites and had no luck. No other posts on here appear to have similar items.

I let one grow last year and it got about a foot high. It resembled a tree and had no flowers. I finally dug it up and it had a relatively big root system with light colored, woody and slightly rubbery roots. The plant/weed in that location came back but grows much more slowly than it did last year. They show up in the late spring/early summer (late May or June here). You can't simply yank them up.

The leaves are either green or greenish-red, but they tended towards a mix of light green/red as they got bigger. The stem is light green with reddish, very fine thorns on it. As you can see from the pictures below, there are multiple stems and the leaves have teeth.

I live in the Salt Lake City area which may help with identification.

picture of leaves
picture of stem

I did not plant anything in these locations and there's nothing unique about their locations: one patch is near a wooden fence but the other is in the middle of the yard.

Mysterious garden delight or horrible weeds you decide.

wwax — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:46:51 -0800

I could really use some help identifying some plants that have popped up in my garden. I have recently moved to the US and am finding I am on a steep learning curve where plant species over here are concerned. Now the warmer weather is here a bunch of new plants are popping up in an old garden, before I go mad and dig them all up I wanted to make sure they are all weeds. I have had mixed results asking friends and family as none of them are gardeners.

I apologise in advance for the pictures. My stupid camera insisted on taking all pics in landscape mode, I so have to find the manual.

1/ This looks (and smells) like a member but it's not one I am used to seeing. Does it look like a mint to anyone else before I start putting it in my iced tea?

2/ This had taken over one whole garden bed last Autumn when we moved in. It stinks when cut and it was covered in lots of black berries that stained our white dog purple.

3/ My MIL insists these are daylillies, but they just look like clumps of large floppy grass to me.

4/ This is a low sort of ground cover no more than 6 inches high.

5/ These are growing at a fast rate of knots and have a strange sort of hollow stem with pith in.

Any help appreciated. These are probably simple to ID if you are used to gardening in the Midwest, but this is my first year here with a garden of any sort and our 100 year old very run down garden has thrown up some great finds, like vast swaths of lily of the valley and tulips and a beautiful rhododendron I'd hate to dig up some other treasure by mistake.

Help identifying weeds to photograph.

Don92705 — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:50:52 -0800

Am working on a project to photograph some weeds in my area as pictorial reference for allergy patients. I can find pictures of specimens, but I must use original work. When I go out weed hunting, I cannot tell the difference between mustard or golden rod or ragweed (for example). Any ideas for a field guide, including a budding botanist? This is for Southern California.

ugh, weeds

otherwordlyglow — Wed, 25 May 2011 09:38:48 -0800

We have the holy trinity of major weed problems: Bermudagrass, Oxalis, Wild Blackberry. What should we do? We moved into our San Francisco house in January and inherited a large, very unkempt backyard. It clearly has not been maintained for many years. We're not expert gardeners and are clearly outmatched by the weeds.

It's terraced up on about 6 levels from the back of the house up the hill We've weeded (by hand) hundreds of gallons of weeds but still have much to do and are trying to avoid using herbicides but are not completely opposed to them. The oxalis is pretty benign and though it's a pain to weed, it's not quite as obnoxious as the other two main problems. After pulling 10-foot long, inch-thick, thorny vines out of the trees, the wild blackberry (Himalaya Berry?) is still popping up all over and we've been digging it up as far down as we can but I'm sure there's still more to come. Our neighbors to the back are infested with it so I know it's just a matter of time.

The Bermudagrass is particularly awful and there is a tangled mat of runners several inches thick in places AND there's landscape/weed cloth underneath a lot of it (clearly not doing its job). I pulled up some of the weed cloth and there's MORE runners underneath it. Do we just have to scrape off a foot of soil and start all over? How do we eradicate the Bermudagrass?

Luckily, there's almost nothing in the yard that's worth keeping so wholesale destruction is fine. No fine-grain weeding is really required yet. Another difficulty is that the backyard is only accessible through the house (it's attached on both sides to the neighbors) by way of a standard-sized door so any equipment has to be small enough to get through there. A rototiller would fit but is that going to make the problem worse? Do we just need to pour poison on our yard? I don't mind hand-weeding if it's really going to help.

To Eat It or Not To Eat It?

tau_ceti — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:37:44 -0800

We've recently moved into a new place with an empty lot. The previous tenants used parts of the lot to garden, but it's now overgrown with a mix of food plants and weeds. Over the past month, we've had this plant popping up. It looks sort of spinachy, but we don't want to start mixing it into salads unless it's actually edible. Can anyone identify it? Closer look here.

It ain't a yard, it's weeds.

rahnefan — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:48:30 -0800

What is the best thing to do about all the weeds in my yard? There's hardly any grass remaining. It is Spring as you know. I live in the Southeastern US. Total yard is about one acre. I have almost nothing but weeds in the front yard, with exception to one side where gradually the neighbor's centipede (or is it bermuda?) has crept in a bit. The back yard is all weeds with exception to some mossy areas I don't mind. Moss is good. Except the back yard is not a yard, it is a steep hill (going up, not down).

The family and I react strongly to pollen and allergens also and I think controlling these weeds may help.

We have a little of everything probably...crabgrass, clover, a weed with a violet little bloom on it, chickweed, I don't even know what all is out there.

If I'm lucky I have one day a week to work outside. That is an important factor. If it rains or if a kid is sick or something else calls me away, no yardwork for a week.

Kill it all and put down sod? Kill it all and put down seed? Wait til Fall? There is too much info about this online, and much of it is conflicting.

What do I need to make this Toro weed trimmer work?

Mo Nickels — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:29:36 -0800

I was given an electric Toro weed trimmer. It powers up and the motor seems to function fine, but it's missing the part required to hold the wire. What do I need to attach to it? Some part, some cap, a thingy, a doohickey? Not even sure what to search for or ask for at the hardware store. Here are pictures of its business end. Can you tell me what I need to buy to make this work?

Weeds vs. brick patio vs. barely competent yard owner

ryanshepard — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:21:29 -0800

Weeds vs. brick patio - help! Weeds are constantly pushing up between the bricks of a patio that I'm trying to clean / restore - does anyone have any solutions that don't involve gallons of weedkiller?

Purely organic + non-toxic solutions are preferable (there may soon be an infant crawling around on it.)

Replacing the weeds in my lawn with grass this fall.

waylaid — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 23:04:36 -0800

Replacing the weeds in my lawn with grass this fall. Best way to do it? I recently bought a house. The backyard is pretty big (and unshaded) - about 4500 square feet. The backyard is pretty much all weeds (clovers, crabgrass) which looks okay when mowed, but looks pretty bad after growing for a week.

What's the best way to replace my lawn with grass? People have suggested bags of 'seed and feed' at Home Depot - to kill off the weeds and drop in new grass seed.

I'd like to start it as soon as I can. I live in the Maryland suburbs, just a few blocks outside of DC. My soil is pretty moist and clay-y.

Plant identification: eat it, nurture it, or kill it with fire?

misskaz — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 15:24:49 -0800

Please help me identify the plants - flowers, weeds, veggies, herbs - in the garden of the house we just bought. There are several plants that I don't recognize, so I'd really appreciate any clues you might have! My husband and I bought a house in Chicago a little while ago, and the previous owners liked to garden a lot. The backyard is full of all kinds of flowers and vegetables. But they didn't label anything and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of organization in the beds. Add to that a busy schedule for the past month during the height of the growing season, and the garden is also being overtaken by weeds. While eventually we will probably rip a lot of it out (it's poorly laid out for our needs), we'd like to know what a lot of the plants are so we can figure out what to eat, what to save, and what to get rid of.

I've loosely categorized what needs to be identified but it is possible or even likely that I mis-categorized a flower as a veggie or vice-versa. I also apologize for the bad photography and that the plants are all very close together so it's pretty impossible to get a shot of *just* the plant in question.

Category 1. Weed or plant? There are a couple things that look pretty weedy and have gotten quite huge, so we need to know if these are something to save or get rid of.

Weed or plant 1a
Weed or plant 1b
Weed or plant 1c

Weed or plant 2

Weed or plant 3

Weed or plant 4

Category 2: Should I eat it? The previous owners grew lots of food (we are overloaded with chard, lettuce, garlic, parsley and tomatoes) but it's hard to tell what is edible and what isn't.
Little sprout-y looking things 1
Little sprout-y looking things 2

Long beans 1
Long beans 2
Long beans 3

Cabbage?

Category 3: Flowers, ground cover, shrubs
Puff balls
Little flowers
Mums?
7 toothy leaflets
Butterflies love these
Giant shrub and giant shrub closeup
This is pretty but is everywhere and seems to be quite invasive I think via runners or roots. It is even growing out of cracks in concrete. Here it is growing out of the side of our house. We may need tips on how to contain this one, since the main plant seems to belong to our neighbor. There will be a 6ft wood fence between us and the neighbor in the future.

Thanks!

What are these plants in my yard, and what do I do about them?

DakotaPaul — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:32:23 -0800

What are these weeds/trees/green things that are all over my yard, and can I do anything about them? I'm finding these weeds (higher-res shot) all over my yard, both in the landscaping and the lawn, and they are spreading like wildfire.

Here's an ~18" specimen I found this evening.

I believe this is a mature one in the neighbor's yard, and a close-up of its leaves.

What are they, and what can I do about them? I'm not keen on using Round Up, and have been pulling as many as I can whenever I'm in the yard but I'll never keep up. The ones in the lawn just seem to leave tough stems and spread despite being mowed every week. Thanks!

Secrets of the String Trimmer

mecran01 — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:25:19 -0800

My Ryobi string trimmer doesn't feed well. Should I just buy a new head for it or try one of those alternative string trimmer heads? I've also seen heads that use pre-cut pieces of nylon string. Do those work?

It used to feed ok, not great. Now I have to manually refresh the nylon when it wears down, which has made me completely timid in my weed whackery. I think that self-feeding trimmers are a cruel marketing lie.

Where do I get the ring that Nancy Botwin wears on the show Weeds?

BuddhaInABucket — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:30:18 -0800

Asking for my sister: "On the show Weeds, Nancy is always wearing an awesome gold and emerald snake ring on her middle finger. Does anyone know where to get one?"

How to kill grass on a playground?

roaring beast — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:47:31 -0800

How to kill grass on a playground? We recently installed a wooden playground set in use by about 20-30 kids each week. After laying down about two layers of landscape fabric on top of grass, we put about 2" of rubber playground mulch over it.

The problem is that grass and weeds are still growing up through it. In hindsight, we probably should have killed off the grass before putting down the fabric. Now it would be an incredible task to move all the rubber mulch, lift all the fabric, kill the grass and put it back on all over again.

It's been suggested that we use Roundup to kill all the grass, but I wonder if this is safe since children will be using the playground in the future.

The mulch with grass growing through is quite unsightly, but maybe something we just have to live with.

What should we do? Any ideas?

I think it's from space.

fiercekitten — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:25:26 -0800

PlantIdFilter: I've searched all the weed databases for my area trying to id this thing here. No luck, so either it's not a noxious weed or I need more help. The only thing I found that comes close is halogeton but that's pretty specific to SE Oregon. But, then again, I found buffalobur in the backyard, which is also supposed to be specific to the hot and dry part of the state as well.

The strangest thing about it is it seems to start at the little red knot at the middle. This one is about 3 inches across on the widest spot, but I have some that are a foot across. It looks like it just adds length as it gets bigger, so the huge ones have leaves and flowers the same size and such. Here's a closeup of the tiny little flowers, which are so small I can barely see them. The leaves are around 1/2 in in length, on most of them. They cover the reddish stem the entire length. It grows very close the ground, although the section that gets regular water has some that are growing a little more upright, but still close to the ground. It doesn't like shade much, so I haven't found much of it actually under any plants.

We live in the greater PDX area and recently bought a house with no grass. It has a yard, but no grass. It's coming up in the areas where the weed barrier is either one layer or has a break in it. I suspect this is a common contaminant in bird feed, as the mourning doves really like to eat it. Heck, the mourning doves could have brought it in from elsewhere even. It spreads through little tiny seeds, about the same size as salt grains, or through runners, in my case, from the side yard clear under the patio (and through the cracks in the patio) to the other side of the yard.

Roundup (glyphosphate) and Quinclorac/Dicamba (Bayer Advanced All in One Lawn Weed Killer) hasn't had quite the effect I'd hoped for. Both are working, but slower than on regular broadleaf weeds.