Wildflower or Weed?

bury_robert

Hi All. Excuse any ignorance I may show but I am very new to looking after a garden and plants. I am trying to create a wildflower patch on the front of my terraced house in the small plot area we have. Last Autumn I threw out some seeds and now have some greenery to show for it. I am having great trouble in identifying what is a common weed and what is a wildflower and wondered if any of you green fingered friends could help me? I will post a few pictures of certain growths that I have.

1.

2.

3.

4.                              
5. Surely a weed right?
6. the small one in centre

7. All the little bits?8.

bury_robert

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josusa47

There is not really a class of plants called weeds, and most gardeners define a weed as a plant growing where it's not wanted.  So any plant can be a weed, such as the random potatoes that still keep appearing in my flower border which was formerly my veg plot.  The choice is yours, keep them if you like them, if not, pick them out and bin them, preferably before they go to seed, otherwise you'll have their offspring appearing next year.

B3

Top one is hairy bittercress. You don't want it. I've seen it growing in a bucket of water and a pile of sand. Bottom one looks a bit like a cornflower.

ForTheBees

The last one is a cornflower.

BobTheGardener

1) Hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) (get rid)

2) ?

3) looks like a Plantago (plantain) (get rid)

4) Opium poppy

5) poppy of some type, possibly a poorly 4.

6) more poppies of a different type, strap-like leaves look like bluebell

7) can't tell, but lots of poppy seedlings in there growing through what looks like more bluebells

8) possibly cornflower

bury_robert

Wow cheers everyone. Appreciate the comments so far. 

Time to start pulling out some of those bittercress 

bury_robert

I note that number 2 the short thin leaved one, had little hoops that were spiralling around neighbouring plants if that helps anyone?

Busy-Lizzie

I think no 2 is a vetch, in the pea family. They have little tendrils that wind around. It's a wild flower in a meadow but a weed in a formal flower border.

bury_robert

Busy-Lizzie said:

I think no 2 is a vetch, in the pea family. They have little tendrils that wind around. It's a wild flower in a meadow but a weed in a formal flower border.

Yep, that was in the seed pack. So it must be 'tufted vetch'. I'll leave that one then 😉👍

raisingirl

wildflower or weed is a very fine line 

for example no.3 which could be a narrow leafed plantain. If it is, it's a very useful plant because it's roots have a particularly high mycorrhizal fungi 'content' so you can use the roots chopped up to help new plants get established, just like the expensive powder you can buy in the garden centre.