Any weeds allowed to stay?

[lettucegrow!]

I was just wondering if anyone allows any 'weeds' to stay put for any reason and I'm thinking of anything really that you didn't plant there yourself.
In my garden I'm really happy that there's some cow parsley blown in and happily let it grow away. I like cutting it and bringing it in,always have done. I've also got the little viola or Heartsease all over the show, lots in amongst the veg. which I love,especially as I'm going all 'Alice Fowlerish. And some grass seed, growing from the bird seed that's fallen.

[pdblake]

I was just wondering if anyone allows any 'weeds' to stay put for any reason and I'm thinking of anything really that you didn't plant there yourself.

Only through laziness

[lettucegrow!]

Ha Ha ! None you actually like then? Just a lazy a***!!!!

[rustylady]

I always let dandelion and sow thistle grow a bit, cos the guineapigs love them.

[lettucegrow!]

Oooh, I don't allow that one! Even though they love it.

[Guttata]

All that flower early as they are a good source of pollen and nectar for bees.

Basically a weed is a plant growing where you do not want it to grow. There was an episode in Real Gardeners on Channel 4, I think they are available on 4OD, where a woman set up beds to grow what most gardeners would consider weeds.

[Snadger]

The best crop of onions I ever had were surrounded by a sea of chickweed.

Chickweed is a good green manure as long as you catch it before it flowers. It also creates a green mulch which stops water evaporating from the soil!

[Flummery]

Chickweed here too - because I harvest it and rip it up for the chickens. I let all small heartsease flowers stay, and I've given up fighting ground elder and have a cutting patch - it's looking beautiful and the moment!

[di]

Pretty much anything that's pretty stays...unless it's bindweed
I also let my dandelions stay and also the purple dead nettles...they're a great early food source for the bees.(and they add a beautiful splash of colour when the plot looks otherwise dull)
Our plot is pretty much full of poppies,unless they're restricting the plants I'm intentionally growing then they stay.

[Jardiniere]

i leave the poppies too unless they are strangling anything important - but did you see my thread on Mr. Fotheringill's seeds where i put in a patch which was meant to be meadow flowers and they all (90%) turned out as hedge mustard - which i have now ripped out.....

[Comfreyfan]

I cut down the nettles now and then for liquid feed, but always leave plenty for the butterflies and moths. Lady's Mantle, violets, primroses and ferns turn up all over the place and mostly get left to grow - I'm just grateful that something's growing!

Some things that I've planted and nurtured over the years, like chamomile, just won't grow in the beds but grow happily between the patio slabs!

Brambles, bindweed and creeping buttercup are definitely not welcome and also this little starry creeping moss stuff which will completely cover a bed left unchecked.

[rogesse]

I don't know what this is but it has popped up everywhere in the garden I'm trying to clear.It seems to be a dandelion type thing (seeds like a dandelion clock) but is too pretty to evict!

[bubblewrap]

I get loads of poppies on my lottie I thin them out but I generally have a good crop.
I let them grow because I like the colours everything from white through purple to red.
Any way I get so many it is impossible to get rid of them all.

PS As I keep the poppies & want them in reality they are NOT weeds.

[binley100]

Some of the old fellas at our lottie just plant their veg then don't seem to worry too much about weeding. They always get good crops. I think its cos the pigeons and wabbits can't spot the goodies in amongst the weeds. P'haps we worry too much about neat and tidy.

[bubblewrap]

Some of the old fellas at our lottie just plant their veg then don't seem to worry too much about weeding. They always get good crops. I think its cos the pigeons and wabbits can't spot the goodies in amongst the weeds. P'haps we worry too much about neat and tidy.

Must be stupid pigeons in the West Midlands the pigeons over here can spot one cabbage in a whole field of weeds.
And the pigeons ate all the wabbits!