Originally Posted by Genie2312

how can anyone think it's an awful weed.... /QUOTE]
A weed is a plant in the wrong place. After all, in parts of North America ground elder is thought of as a decorative garden flower, because it is not invasive there.

If you'd spent several hard days digging out the cotoneaster scrubland that had developed in various abandoned parts of the garden under the previous owner's neglect, and continue to have to cut back every year several fast-growing ones that won't be dug out, as they are well rooted under the shed, etc, as well as removing many seedlings every year before they become established, you might think they are weeds too. I don't deny that some of them are fine plants in the right place, and I really rather like the giant Himalayan cotoneaster we have - though that one doesn't seed as much as the horizontalis and the unidentified (by me) one behind the shed, and several other places.