Friends, Late in the summer, I started seeing little round, ground-huuging plants, with deeply veined oblong green leaves, popping up in a garden that has mainly various kinds of perennials in it. For a while, I thought these might be something I had planted that just had a late season. Now, I'm not so sure. These things have started spreading to other parts of the bed, although so far nowhere else that I can find, and the more mature ones are getting pretty big (10-12 inch diameter in a few cases.) The big ones are hard to pull, but when I have managed to dig them out, they have a simple fibrous root system that appears to flare out and down into the soil. No sign of a bulb or rhizome. I have attached a couple of photos in hopes that someone with more horticultural savvy than I could tell me what these guys are, whether I should be trying to control them, and if so, how.. Thanks Ward Kelsey -- Please reply to twokelseys@juno.com .
Friends, Thanks for your many replies and ideas. A couple of folks thought plantain, but I know plantain, and although similar, these aren't that. Ajuga was mentioned a couple of times, but again, I have some modest experience with that, and I think not. More than a few people nominated rubekia (Black Eyed Susan), and I think that's what it is. I had a couple of scrawny ones that I planted in this bed a few years ago, and this summer a couple of them flowered pretty well, then died back. Apparently, as I was told by some of you and confirmed on several gardening sites, these guys self-seed very readily, which explains not only their limited, but prolific, location, but also their appearance late in the summer. Because of their proclivity to self-seed and spread, many people treat these like weeds. However, I like the way they look, and I plan to transplant a few of these to some problem areas where other flowers have had trouble taking hold... Again, many thanks for your interest and suggestions... Ward Kelsey On Thursday, October 15, 2015, Ward and MR Kelsey <twokelseys@gmail.com> wrote:
Friends,
Late in the summer, I started seeing little round, ground-huuging plants, with deeply veined oblong green leaves, popping up in a garden that has mainly various kinds of perennials in it. For a while, I thought these might be something I had planted that just had a late season. Now, I'm not so sure. These things have started spreading to other parts of the bed, although so far nowhere else that I can find, and the more mature ones are getting pretty big (10-12 inch diameter in a few cases.) The big ones are hard to pull, but when I have managed to dig them out, they have a simple fibrous root system that appears to flare out and down into the soil. No sign of a bulb or rhizome. I have attached a couple of photos in hopes that someone with more horticultural savvy than I could tell me what these guys are, whether I should be trying to control them, and if so, how..
Thanks
Ward Kelsey
-- Please reply to twokelseys@juno.com <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','twokelseys@juno.com');> .
-- Please reply to twokelseys@juno.com .
participants (1)
-
Ward and MR Kelsey