Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

Whenever I've mow the greenmargin, I avoid harming this big weed, about
three feet tall & at least as wide. Though unmolested it never spreads
anywhere else, but is getting bigger every year. Here it is big & green in
April:

http://www.paghat.com/images/bigweedonstreet_ap.jpg

and here it is completely changed & rust-red in July:

http://www.paghat.com/images/bigroad...d_earlyjul.jpg

I find it very beautiful & would love to have a name for it.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com

Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

In article ,
paghat wrote:
Whenever I've mow the greenmargin, I avoid harming this big weed, about
three feet tall & at least as wide. Though unmolested it never spreads
anywhere else, but is getting bigger every year. Here it is big & green in
April:

http://www.paghat.com/images/bigweedonstreet_ap.jpg
and here it is completely changed & rust-red in July:
http://www.paghat.com/images/bigroad...d_earlyjul.jpg
I find it very beautiful & would love to have a name for it.

Ugh. I'm afraid that I fall on the noxious weed side of things for
that one ; I suspect that it's curled dock:

http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/cro.../fab32s00.html

cheers!
--
================================================== ========================
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."

Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

In article , Philip Lewis
wrote:

(paghat) writes:
I find it very beautiful & would love to have a name for it.

I propose fred.... seems like a good name.

I guarantee, from this day on, it's Fred.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com

Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

In article ,
(Cat) wrote:

In article ,
paghat wrote:
Whenever I've mow the greenmargin, I avoid harming this big weed, about
three feet tall & at least as wide. Though unmolested it never spreads
anywhere else, but is getting bigger every year. Here it is big & green in
April:

http://www.paghat.com/images/bigweedonstreet_ap.jpg
and here it is completely changed & rust-red in July:
http://www.paghat.com/images/bigroad...d_earlyjul.jpg
I find it very beautiful & would love to have a name for it.

Ugh. I'm afraid that I fall on the noxious weed side of things for
that one ; I suspect that it's curled dock:

http://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/cro.../fab32s00.html

cheers!

Thanks, that certainly looked like it, so I looked up the genus, &amp
instantly found that it was not Crispy Dock per se (an introduced invasive
pest plant) but is Rumex occidentalis, native of right here on Puget Sound
(actually, from Alaska to California), bigger & branchier than R. crispus,
but never aggressive, which explains why in three years this one has never
seeded itself anywhere as crispy dock would, though every year it is just
loaded with seeds.

Granny Artemis agrees with you that it just looks like a weed & if I
hadn't been mowing around it, she wouldn't let it have its space. It still
strikes me as a beautiful & interesting plant, weed though it be.

I'm off to look up some more stuff about it. Looks like a useful plant --
native americans harvested it for food.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com

Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

In article ,
paghat wrote:
Thanks, that certainly looked like it, so I looked up the genus, &amp
instantly found that it was not Crispy Dock per se (an introduced invasive
pest plant) but is Rumex occidentalis, native of right here on Puget Sound
(actually, from Alaska to California), bigger & branchier than R. crispus,
but never aggressive, which explains why in three years this one has never
seeded itself anywhere as crispy dock would, though every year it is just
loaded with seeds.

Neat! [and much better news ;]

Granny Artemis agrees with you that it just looks like a weed & if I
hadn't been mowing around it, she wouldn't let it have its space. It still
strikes me as a beautiful & interesting plant, weed though it be.

Heh. It takes all kinds ; My mom thinks that I'm crazy to grow deadly
nightshade and bittersweet ;

I'm off to look up some more stuff about it. Looks like a useful plant --
native americans harvested it for food.

Hmmm. I'll have to try and hunt out my book about native american plant
foods tomorrow...

cheers!
--
================================================== ========================
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."

Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

Look like Rumex

--
Mike LaMana, MS
Heartwood Consulting Services, LLC
Toms River, NJ
www.HeartwoodConsulting.net



"paghat" wrote in message
...
Whenever I've mow the greenmargin, I avoid harming this big weed, about
three feet tall & at least as wide. Though unmolested it never spreads
anywhere else, but is getting bigger every year. Here it is big & green in

Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

Heh. It takes all kinds ; My mom thinks that I'm crazy to grow deadly
nightshade and bittersweet ;

I grow American Bittersweet, in my area it is actually disappearing slowly and
the cedar waxwings love the stuff come late summer. I had nightshade in the old
yard I'd pull out once the flowers passed so it never really spread but I did
get to enjoy the flowers, I think they are pretty.
Colleen
Zone 5 CT

Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

In article ,
(Cat) wrote:

In article ,
paghat wrote:
Thanks, that certainly looked like it, so I looked up the genus, &amp
instantly found that it was not Crispy Dock per se (an introduced invasive
pest plant) but is Rumex occidentalis, native of right here on Puget Sound
(actually, from Alaska to California), bigger & branchier than R. crispus,
but never aggressive, which explains why in three years this one has never
seeded itself anywhere as crispy dock would, though every year it is just
loaded with seeds.

Neat! [and much better news ;]

Granny Artemis agrees with you that it just looks like a weed & if I
hadn't been mowing around it, she wouldn't let it have its space. It still
strikes me as a beautiful & interesting plant, weed though it be.

Heh. It takes all kinds ; My mom thinks that I'm crazy to grow deadly
nightshade and bittersweet ;

Nightshade IS a beautiful woody vine & I let one get quite big for a year
or so, but when they started springing up all over the place I decided not
to encourage them. Spreads very aggressively here. But leaves, flowers, &
fruit are quite pretty, & it's no more "deadly" than any number of
commonly gardened plants, could even be eaten if first well cooked. Here's
my article "Deadly Nightshade should be renamed Lovely Nightshade":
http://www.paghat.com/nightshade.html

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com

Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

paghat wrote:
...Nightshade IS a beautiful woody vine & I let one get quite big for a year...
.... Here's
my article "Deadly Nightshade should be renamed Lovely Nightshade"...




There are different varieties of nightshade. The black nightshade is
very common in my fields, but is not really poisonous. I have been told
that there is another variety here in New England that has red berries
instead of black berries that is much more toxic. It is more of a vine
than a bush. Fortunately, it's less common (at least here).

Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

In article ,
paghat wrote:
Nightshade IS a beautiful woody vine & I let one get quite big for a year
or so, but when they started springing up all over the place I decided not
to encourage them. Spreads very aggressively here. But leaves, flowers, &
fruit are quite pretty, & it's no more "deadly" than any number of
commonly gardened plants, could even be eaten if first well cooked. Here's
my article "Deadly Nightshade should be renamed Lovely Nightshade":
http://www.paghat.com/nightshade.html

Nice ;

I've dealt with the falling over problem by putting [well, okay - keeping
a donor ;] mine further back in the garden, in a 'cage' [one of the
column shaped supports]. It stays fairly upright, and the flowers and
berries drape out nicely ;

cheers!
--
================================================== ========================
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."

Big Roadside Weed: What Is It??
 

In article ,
dps wrote:
There are different varieties of nightshade. The black nightshade is
very common in my fields, but is not really poisonous. I have been told
that there is another variety here in New England that has red berries
instead of black berries that is much more toxic. It is more of a vine
than a bush. Fortunately, it's less common (at least here).

Being totally pedantic, there's an amazing amount of confusion around the
various 'nightshades'.

The plant that most north americans refer to as 'deadly nightshade' is
actually 'Solanum Dulcamara' [a european import, that tastes absolutely
dreadful, and has red berries] - and also called 'european bittersweet'

http://perso.club-internet.fr/leroux...01_12_2000.jpg

If the 'black nightshade' that we're talking about is the same one -
'Solanum Nigrum', it'd a low bushy plant, with fairly small black
berries about the size of currants. It's also an introduced plant,
and I believe that it's fairly poisonous.

http://perso.club-internet.fr/leroux...08_10_2000.jpg

'european bittersweet' and 'black nightshade' look awfully similar, and
I remember being warned to touch neither as a child, on the grounds
that they were both extremely poisonous [we had both growing
persistantly at the end of the fence].

True deadly nightshade, 'Atropa Belladona' is actually a shrub [I've
grown one that reached well over 6 feet, with a sturdy stem and large
leaves], and grows lovely large black berries that are about the size
of a cherry. I'm told, although I haven't tried it, that the berries
taste quite lovely. Poison control says that 6 berries will make an
adult particularly unwell.

http://www.uni-essen.de/botanik/Exku...belladonna.jpg

This photo gives some idea of scale:

http://www.erowid.org/plants/show_im...elladonna7.jpg

cheers!
--
================================================== ========================
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."