Can you identify this plant that's taking over my yard?

May 3, 2013 4:56 AM

If my yard is France, this rhizome is Germany. It's between one and two feet tall when fully grown, and produces a single, smallish dark pink flower. Photo here.

Yard is just outside Boston, MA. The leaves are creased down the center, and the plant doesn't have much of a smell when broken. When it first emerges it looks a lot like an iris plant, except that it's a couple shades lighter green and the leaves have that crease. It spreads very quickly through a dense web of roots and rhizomes and is so tenacious that it will grow through asphalt.

A few years ago we had bunches here and there and thought they were pretty enough to not mess with. Now they're everywhere and it's clear that I have to control them.

Let me know if there's more I can tell you. Thanks!

posted by Mayor Curley to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

Best answer: Pink tradescantia aka spiderwort? Spreads like wildfire, I have the purple and pink versions in my MA garden, and they're rather pretty if aggressive.
posted by lydhre at 5:20 AM on May 3, 2013

Response by poster: Well done! I misremembered the number of flowers because it hasn't flowered yet this year, just popped up everywhere. Thanks so much!
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:26 AM on May 3, 2013

Here in Memphis, spiderwort is kinda halfway between a weed and a cultivated flower. Just yesterday I took my mom to see a front yard in our neighborhood that was entirely a large cultivated area of it. Was beautiful, and I'm assuming all they had to do was keep the other weeds pulled.
posted by raisingsand at 9:06 AM on May 3, 2013