WHAT is this weed?

May 30, 2024 2:36 PM

A whole bunch of this weed suddenly showed up this year. What on earth is it? Should I be alarmed?

It is currently quite tall and I'm going to go out and cut it back. It looks like multiple small fringed white flowers like asters or tiny daisies are going to bloom on each plant. It has a nice smell slightly reminiscent of lilacs.

If it's actually wild asters or something I'll just cut it back substantially and leave some, but we've gotten absolutely wild cycles of weeds these past few years and for all I know it's, like, Crypto Jimsonweed or Very Tall Bindweed or something.

We are in Minnesota.

posted by Frowner to Home & Garden (7 answers total)

We just ID'd something on iNaturalist with sardonyx - it could work for you if you sign up :)

Maybe a member of fleabanes and horseweeds?
posted by amtho at 2:48 PM on May 30, 2024 [1 favorite]

Yes, iNaturalist this. Fleabane seems like a good guess to me, but I'm not a Minnesotan.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:11 PM on May 30, 2024

Looks a lot like horseweed -- if so it's not the worst thing to deal with, as it's native and not super hard to control.

There's always a risk when uprooting large patches of weeds at this time of year that you'll create perfect conditions for even worse stuff to take root in the disturbed soil, so at this point you may just want to decapitate the flowering tops and dispose of those before they go to seed. You can continue to mow them down throughout the summer and that could eventually kill them, but autumn is the time to really go after them whether by uprooting or using an herbicide.
posted by theory at 3:15 PM on May 30, 2024 [2 favorites]

I'm in south east MN and our perennial beds are routinely producing flea bane which looks pretty dang similar to this.
posted by Ferreous at 3:19 PM on May 30, 2024

Response by poster: I think it's fleabane - I found some Minnesota photos and the leaves and bracts (new word!) look just like what I have. What if I just leave a patch of it? I need to mow some of it to keep the yard under control, but it looks like it will flower kind of prettily and I was going to put in some frost asters anyway and it looks a bit like asters.
posted by Frowner at 3:25 PM on May 30, 2024 [3 favorites]

Anything in the aster family (which this definitely is, but that doesn’t mean it’s “an aster” per se) is notoriously difficult to identify, especially before it flowers! I would not trust an app to identify this at this stage. But have another look once the first of those buds opens, it’ll be easier then!
posted by showbiz_liz at 4:26 PM on May 30, 2024 [4 favorites]

Looks like fleabane. I actually let it grow in parts of my garden and find it quite charming. It is easy to remove if you change your mind and in my experience not highly invasive.
posted by SinAesthetic at 2:18 PM on May 31, 2024