How To Recognise Common Garden Weeds: Garden Weed Identification Guide
Weeds in Gardens Are a Problem. Here Is How To Recognise Common Garden Weeds. Discover Simple UK Weed ID That Helps You Recognise Common Garden Weeds.
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Weed recognition isn’t easy. Especially when the weed has just germinated and all you see is a cotyledon or two. And even when they grow a little bigger it’s not always obvious what they are. But once you understand weeds a little more it becomes much easier to spot the clues that previously eluded you. For example, does your weed have one cotyledon (seed leaves)? If so it’s a monocot. And if it has two cotyledons then it’s a dicot. These simple differences are important clues to what the plant will grow into. Enjoy learning about Recognise Common Garden Weedsand their botanical elements
Size
Now check on the size of the cotyledons. Are they big or small? To make judging the size easier think about when you germinated vegetable or flower seeds. Lettuce seedlings are small. Celery seedlings are even smaller. Now think about the size of e sunflower seedling. It’s much bigger. So you have comparative sizes to judge the seedling and cotyledons by.
Now look at the seed stem (hypocotyl). Is it long or short? Is it green or some other colour. For example, the weed commonly called redshank (Polygonum persicaria) has, unsurprisingly, a red stem.
Shape
Now look at the shape of the cotyledons. Are they long and thin (what we call lanceolate)? Or are they heart-shaped? Or maybe they are notched, or pointed or .. well there’s a huge range of shapes they could be and each shape is a clue to the weed species.
True leaves
First true leaves
Next let’s consider the shape, size and colour of the first true leaves? Each answer we find here is a clue to the species we have growing in front of us. And don’t forget to look at the configuration of the true leaves. Are they in pairs or singles? Or maybe the plant in front of you has a whorl of leaves above the cotyledon. If it has its most likely cleavers (an alternative would be cannabis .. but let’s not go there).
Most weed plants germinate at certain times of the year. So if you are seeing a lot of the same weeds germinating in, say, May but not in November, then you have another clue. Later I’m going to describe each weed and give an indication of when you might expect to see them germinating.
More on How to Recognise Common Garden Weeds Below
Hairy Leaves
Are the cotyledons or true leaves hairy? Hairy leaves are another clue to the identity of a seedling or mature plant.
Colour
I mentioned coloured hypocotyls earlier. Now look at the rest of the plant for colour. spots on leaves are a real giveaway. But don’t stop there. Look under the leaves as well. They could be a totally different colour underneath.
Glaucous Leaves
There is a special colouration I want to finish on. Some plants have a thin waxy layer on their leaves, which makes them look a dullish grey-green or blue-green colour. If you see this you have found a glaucous plant. It’s not the most common colouration so another important clue to help you recognise common garden weeds.
Tips For Recognising Common Garden Weeds
With all these ID and weed recognition tips you should find garden weed recognition much easier. The basic principles also work in arable situations and there was a time when I could recognise a large number of weed seedlings on farmland or in the garden. Since I’ve stopped being a commercial grower I’ve forgotten many of them.
So as a reminder of look to look for I’m going to list the characteristics and other details of the most common weed plants in the following sections.
What is a Weed?
There is one last question we should ask before trying to recognise our weeds. And that is to ask, What is a weed?
The simplest definition I know is “a plant out of place“.
In other words a plant in the wrong place. And weeds don’t have to be wildflowers or even wild non-flowering plants. When I farmed cereals we sometimes had “volunteer” potatoes grow in the corn crop. They had survived from a previous potato crop and were a real menace in the wheat or barley I grew.
So, in that case, a vegetable became a weed.
And in our veg and flower gardens, we have a much bigger diversity of weeds. Some big, some small, some with beautiful flowers and some with none.
Examples of non-flowering weeds in my own garden are ferns. When I took over the garden in 2000 we have a bed of mixed strawberries and ferns. The ferns have now gone and the strawberries did better without them. And that’s another topic I cover in other articles on this website. I go into some detail on how to get rid of weeds. From smothering them when we start a No-Dig garden or burning them with a flame gun to cultivation techniques and using them as green manure. Use the search function to discover more, or follow the embedded links
Useful Plant Identification Sources
Some of the following are farm based. the reason being they are good resources used by professionals to identify the weeds that can impact their livelihood. These people have a vested interest in getting this right! Some resources suggest the use of herbicides. I don’t as a general rule. There are numerous other techniques that can be used and I advocate their use where possible. And let’s recognise the value of these plants to biodiversity. Plant diversity needs conserving, as do these plants where possible.
