To most gardeners, they’re definitely ‘weeds’. But some of them offer beauty and interest in my garden. So these are the weeds I keep.
Something about them makes me regard them with a lot more affection than I would for something like … the invasive lespedeza. This is one of my least favorite weeds to deal with. It’s one that was promoted by the Ag department to offer quail habitat and erosion control (Sericea lespedeza).
Maybe it’s good for erosion. But for quail habitat, not so much. They grow too densely and make it hard for the ground-dwelling birds to move quickly through a patch. Of course, native lespedeza is excellent for quail, but the invasive one chokes that out. This one unfortunately grows out here at Wild Ozark and it has embedded itself into the area I’m using for a garden. Given how hard it is to pull these from the ground, I’d guess they’re excellent for erosion. But I don’t want them.
Deer tongue Witch Grass (Dichanthelium clandestinum)
This is one of the weeds I don’t pull. It’s a grass that holds a special permanent place at the base of one of my garden walls.
I just love the way it looks. It’s polite and doesn’t spread everywhere (or at least it hasn’t tried to yet). The texture and color are pleasing to my eye. I like the airy flowers. And best of all, it’s native and is valued by wildlife.
There are more than one grass called Witch Grass, and I must have an affinity for plants that use the name, because I like the other one I found last year. It’s called Old Witch Grass. So far, this one hasn’t appeared in my garden, though.
The next one is Unknown Grass, I just like it
I have no idea what this one is, probably a bunch grass of some sort. I just like the way it makes a tussock on the end of the ‘bluff wall’ in my garden. It comes back every year and it hasn’t spread all over the place either. So it’s another of the weeds I keep.
That’s it for the grasses until I find something new to like.
Rock Mint/American Dittany (Cunila origanoides), a Pollinator attractor, Medicinal, and Strongly Independent
I’ve tried for years to coax this independent little soul into my garden. She simply refused, no matter how many root divisions, cuttings, or seeds I tried from plants I found higher up the mountain.
Imagine my surprise and excitement to find not just one, but THREE of them on the barren except for weeds (the ones I don’t necessarily want to keep) low bluff wall of my garden. I found them as I was pulling some of the weeds I don’t want to be there. No telling how long they’ve been there, but I’m glad they are.
Currently I’m writing an article with illustrations on this plant for the North American Native Plant Society’s newsletter. I’ll link to it here when that’s published.
It’s definitely on the list of weeds I keep, and it’s both a pollinator plant and medicinal.
A New Beebalm!
The wild purple beebalm, Monarda fistulosa is already in my garden by invitation. While maybe there’s someone out there that would classify it as a ‘weed’, that will never be me. There’s another one I hope turns out to be a red one (M. didyma) in the garden too. And soon I hope this one sets up camp in there too.
I think it’s M. bradburiana. I spotted this one on the side of the road a week or two ago, and will be trying my best to get it seeded into my garden this fall.
Beebalms are all great pollinator plants and I turn to the M. fistulosa more than any other herb medicinally when a cold or infection is attempting to gain a hold on me. If it’s a weed, it’s on the list of weeds I keep.
A Native Choice Edible – Corn Salad
This one isn’t in my garden yet, but now that I know it well enough, it will be included in my lettuce rows going forward. Corn salad (Valerianella locusta) is one of the plants I’ve seen mentioned and lauded in wild food forager books.
Until this year I didn’t recognize it but once I did, I saw it growing everywhere around here. Now it’s one of the weeds I keep, too. I hope it does taste as good as the wild food foragers say it does.
One last mention on the list of weeds I keep…
We have a lot of passionflower vines all around and they’re way too spready to keep in the garden. I have a spot with all white-flowered passionflower in a different garden, though. But this one is small, stays small, and so it’s one that I don’t pull when I find it in my garden.
Passiflora lutea is a small vine and makes light yellow flowers just like the larger purple or white ones, but only the size of a quarter (or smaller). This one isn’t blooming yet, but I’ll update this post with another pic once it does.
I don’t use it for anything, I just like it. I’m sure something pollinates the flowers, but I haven’t done the research yet. So it’s one of the weeds I keep just because I like it.
I hope you enjoyed this post! Leave a comment to tell me about the weeds you like to leave when you’re working in your garden.
Contact & About
email: madison@wildozark.com
phone: (479) 409-3429
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I’m a nature-lover, real estate agent & artist. Sometimes, I also write things. I began using local pigments to paint scenes from nature in the Ozarks in 2018.
All of my artwork is available in prints, and where originals are available, they are for sale. You can find all of that over at shop.WildOzark.com.
If you’re interested in buying or selling in rural northwest AR, get in touch with me by phone, text, or email. I’m happy to help! I have a separate website for my real estate blogging and information at WildOzarkLand.com.
Call me “Roxann” or “Madison”, either one works.
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