10 Ways to Tell if It’s a Weed

A visitor compliments a little monk on the profuse beauty of his flower garden by saying “My, what wonders God has wrought!” The monk replies “You should have seen it when God had it all to Himself.” What makes a cultivated garden different from an overgrown vacant lot? One factor is your will—a choice you, as the chief gardener, make to put plants in an agreeable order. A garden left to its own devices will devolve naturally into a sea of weeds that bury not only plants, but also hardscapes, buildings, cars. Not necessarily people-eating weeds like Audrey II in The Little Shop of Horrors or the invading triffids in The Day of the Triffids, but weeds.

Is it a weed? 10 ways to tell…

These 10 questions help me daily to determine if a suspected plant is a weed. Alas, no single answer, on its own, stands alone as a definition. Ask yourself:

1.   Have known cultivars or crops disappeared as the suspect grows?

2.   Does the suspect have especially rapid growth as it knocks off the competition?

3.   Is it hard to eradicate?

4.   Is it invasive in the wild?

5.   Does it flourish in a tough, disturbed, abandoned site where little else can?

6.   Does it grow where nothing like it was planted?

7.   Is it remarkably adaptable?

8.   Is it poisonous or dangerous?

9.   Then, is it unappealing for some aesthetic reason?
    A.   Is it untidy looking?
    B.   Are its flowers tiny or inconspicuous?
    C.   Does it smell or taste bad?
    D.   Is it covered with spines, hairs, thorns or sticky materials?

10.   Most important of all: Is it what you don’t want to grow?

In the following chapters, I discuss these issues in greater depth and illustrate each of these criteria with experiences and photos from my own and nearby gardens (zones 6-7).

Weeds possess a battery of powerful forces to move them to top survivor mode, and these questions often overlap. A large number of “yes” answers may, but only may, qualify a plant as a weed.

These same criteria define those cultivated gems that you want to grow and the same “yes” answers may lead you to suspect your favorite large specimen Norway maple or Rugosa rose and leave you confused. Choice plants answer to these descriptions and offer a wide spectrum of ever-changing desirability in your garden. A cultivated nursery selection out of control in your garden may not even get a nod in any weed book you find. A wildflower you cherish may star as a weed in someone else’s book or website. Alleged culprits may prove innocent of all charges of weediness. Ultimately, the choice is yours.

When I began to garden I found that no source alone could help me define what makes a plant weedy. I read books on weeds, studied botany, observed train stations and parking lot volunteer plants, became a master gardener, volunteered to weed in a weed garden, gardened extensively and considered the weeds as I pulled them out. The more I learned about weeding, the more subjective and fascinating the topic became. Several writers with unique insights on the ecological necessity and inevitability of weeds helped me understand that weeds play good roles as well as roles that thwart my objectives.

We humans cultivate and create gardens to express our own sense of design and esthetics and serve our own purpose. As a living, changing venue, our gardens change and grow. We decide what to keep in and what to keep out. We work only within the bounds allowed by Mother Nature. We can’t plant a tropical flower outside in Alaska in the winter and expect it to survive. When we ignore areas in our gardens or compact our soil, weeds appear. The conundrum becomes how to work with Mother Nature to easily and harmoniously build and maintain this human construct of the garden.

The choice: to weed or not to weed

Once you understand how a particular plant impacts your garden, you will clarify:

•   whether to consider it a weed,

•   how to handle it,

•   how to keep it away with the least amount of effort.

As Voltaire concluded at the end of Candide, “you have to cultivate your garden”.

You may even discover how to adapt your soil, site, and competitive plantings near the weed to discourage it and avoid weeding altogether. A little knowledge by the gardener may prove a dangerous thing to a weed…