May 14, 2004
Botany 101
I have big plans for my garden this year. I'm planting blueberry, raspberry, tomato, pepper, and sunflowers. My strawberries came back from last year, and I already have at least one night's worth of Strawberries Romanoff huddling cozy and green under their leaves.
There is one thing bothering me, though... I have a Mystery Plant.
There are actually several of these plants around the garden, but they don't look like any of the weeds I'm used to pulling. I can't help but wonder if they are something I planted last year that's come back, like the strawberries, and I'm just not recognizing them. Naturally, I'm reluctant to just pull them up if they could be something I put a lot of work into planting in the first place last year...
This is a close-up of one of the leaves, the better for you armchair botanists to reach your conclusions.
So, any guesses as to what this guy is? Should I pull them, or should I keep letting them grow and see what happens?
My kitchen is: A little muddy, I tracked in from the garden.
Posted by andrea at May 14, 2004 11:43 AMAfter doing a little digging, it looks like ground elder (aka Bishop's weed). Here are two sites I found with similar pictures:
http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/grndelder.lf.JPG
http://plantsdatabase.com/showpicture/17637/
Posted by: gOolia on May 14, 2004 01:02 PMI forgot to add.. If you concur, pull pull pull.
Posted by: gOolia on May 14, 2004 01:03 PMIt could be a mint - if the stem feels square,
the leaf and stem are little hairy, and the
crushed leaf smells minty. Mint is a notorious
spreader and best grown in a container, which
can be set in the ground. Timmy might like
the torn up leaves - if it is mint.
Sorta looks like mint to me. *shrug* But what do I know? ;)
Posted by: Andy on May 31, 2004 10:29 AMYeah, Andrea and I had a long discussion about whether or not it's mint. It does look minty from afar, but, really, it's just not mint.
The mint she does have, however, made great mojitos :)
Posted by: michelle on May 31, 2004 11:57 AM