Everyone knows this: after a warm spring rain, the flower bed turns green almost overnight. But how do you tell which plant has opened the cotyledons and whether it is an ornamental plant or an unwanted weed? In this article you will learn how to tell the difference using a few plants as examples.
How to distinguish a weed from a flower in the garden?
To recognize whether a plant in the flower bed is an ornamental plant or a weed, pay attention to characteristics such as leaf shape, flower, root, flowering time, height and location. Wild herb books, internet resources or smartphone apps can be helpful for identification.
Identifying herbs
In order to tackle weeds early and sustainably, you should be able to reliably identify the plants and their preferred location. The visible features differ in terms of:
- Leaf shape (leaf blade),
- Bloom,
- Root,
- Flowering time,
- Growth height,
- Location.
Train your eye by taking a close look at the plants growing in your garden. Also pay attention to where they prefer to thrive.
Wild herb books (€14.00 on Amazon) or the Internet can help you identify them by name. There are now some apps for your smartphone that will help you identify wild plants.
Which weeds colonize very often?
There are some weed plants that can be found in almost every garden. This includes the greedweed, whose characteristics we have listed in the following table:
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Location | Shady, prefers moist, nitrogen-rich soil. Greedweed prefers to thrive under trees, but also spreads in beds. |
| Leaf shape | Very distinctive. Oblong, ovate leaves with jagged edges and hairy undersides. They are colored a strong medium green. The leaf blade is divided into three leaflets. |
| Bloom | Giersch blooms from May to September. The wild herb forms ten to twenty small umbels per inflorescence. These are pure white to slightly reddish in color. |
| Growth height | 30 to 100 centimeters |
The common couch grass is also one of the very stubborn weeds that many gardeners struggle with:
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Location | Prefers nitrogen-containing soils and inhabits meadows and roadsides as well as open bed areas. |
| Leaf shape | Long, narrow, green leaves that are between five and thirty centimeters long. |
| Bloom | The couch grass produces spikes from June to August that are five to twenty centimeters long. |
| Growth height | 50 to 150 centimeters |
These characteristics can also be used to identify other weeds such as dandelions, thistles or the also very stubborn morning glory, a creeping plant. If you also pay attention to the appearance of the ornamental and useful plants you sow, you will quickly learn to distinguish wild plants from desired green ones.
Tip
Some weeds like groundweed are edible and even extremely tasty. That's why they're too good to end up in the organic waste bin or compost after weeding.
