"Linda" wrote in message
...
Least I think that's what it is!
I was driving past a meadow of deep purple (my favourite colour)
anywho I stopped, took a cutting and I am now told it's Patterson's Curse!
I have a HUGE garden so there's plenty of room.
How bad is this delightful flower?

VERY BAD.

it will reproduce at a frankly astonishing rate, it will colonise anywhere
(even rock-hard, bone-dry clay), it crowds out plants you want, and many of
us spend effort getting rid of the horrible stuff - whereas spreading it
requires almost no effort whatsoever. jackie french says one plant can
colonise 50 square metres, or something like that (i'd back that, we had a
small problem with it in our orchard but did nothing about it for 18
months - so now it's on teh verge of becoming impossible to deal with
manually, so we've moved on it this spring & are pulling every single plant
prior to flowering where possible, (and are likely to be doing so with new
ones for a few years yet) - whereas when we first came to our house there
were only a couple of plants of it - presumably recently arrived). even
chickens won't eat it, it's vile. if you only slash it, it reflowers close
to the ground so you can't slash it successfully again. in closing, the
hairy stems can irritate your skin if you've been in contact. there is
nothing good to be said of it whatsoever!!!

many weeds can be quite pretty, and some are even ok because they can't
spread beyond certain conditions - but paterson's curse doesn't have these
ameliorating qualities :-)
kylie