Is It A Weed or A Plant?

Two basic gardening questions arrived via e-mail this week concerning how to manage a new garden and how to deal with plant failure.
When you move to a new garden, the general rule of thumb is to observe it for a year before making major changes. It may have assets that weren’t apparent when you bought the house and garden, like spring flowering bulbs or fall berrying shrubs. It may have deficits that weren’t apparent when you bought the house and garden, like a light pole being screened by a big evergreen tree you plan to take out.
But what if you can’t tell a plant from a weed in the garden and don’t want to fertilize and water the weeds while you’re deciding what’s what? This is true both for beginning gardeners and for those moving here from a completely different climate zone.
A walk around the neighborhood will tell you who is a gardener and who isn’t. Knock on the door of a gardener, introduce yourself, explain your dilemma, and ask if you can bring a few leaf samples over for identification. Gardeners are usually incredibly generous people and are happy to share information.
If the gardener is stumped, the staff at a good garden center can help. Just don’t demand a lot of time during the busiest season of the year. And if you’re going to take staff time, make sure you buy something! You’ll be far more welcome there the next time you need information.
The Gardener’s Weed Book by Barbara Pleasant (Storey Publishing, $14.95 paperback) has line drawings of 70 common weeds, including their blooms, seed pods and root systems. It also gives advice on controlling the weeds. I’m sure there are also websites with colored photos of weeds.
I’m familiar with a lot of weeds, but I don’t know them all. If I can’t remember if I’ve planted something new or it’s a weed coming up, I usually let it get to flowering stage and then decide what it is. If a weed, it gets ripped out before it sets seed and throws itself all over the place. If it’s a running plant in a flower bed, I don’t care what it is. It’s a weed as far as I’m concerned and out it goes, well before flowering time!
The other garden question involves a pyracantha that once thrived in a garden. It was pulled out many years ago, but now the owners want a pyracantha in the same site again and new plants keep dying.
From the description, it sounds like the pyracantha has fireblight, a disease that makes the leaves look scorched. It is very difficult to control fireblight and it often recurs the next spring when weather conditions are right. Some pyracanthas are resistant to this disease and some are not.
If you have a plant that won’t thrive in specific location, my general rule of thumb is to pick a different plant. Many people incorrectly plant rhododendrons in full sun in clay soil. The plants invariably die. Then they buy new ones and plant them in the same place, even though rhododendrons prefer afternoon shade and loose, organically rich soil. There may be nothing wrong with the spot. The gardener has just chosen the wrong plant for it.
If a plant has disease problems in that spot, pick a plant from another plant family when trying to get something going there. Pyracantha is in the same family as crabapples and cotoneaster and these plants can also have fireblight problems. A climbing hydrangea does not, so it would be a better choice to climb a chimney.
Why repeat failure in a garden, when you can turn failure into success by being more flexible in plant choices?
Tempering Enthusiasm with Information
I saw a beautiful new-to-me small flowering tree while travelling in Ohio last weekend. The tree had long fragrant white blooms that smelled sweet, like the blossoms on a fruit tree. I’d never seen this bloom before.
The tree was indeed in the fruit family, a European Birdcherry, Prunus padus. It seems to be a fairly common tree in the Midwest and is hardy to zone 3. Flowers are followed by black fruit in summer.
New foliage is bronzy green, fall foliage is yellow. It sounded like a winner until I read the tree is susceptible to black knot disease. I’d rather have a plant that doesn’t have disease prone tendencies. It’s always good to temper enthusiasm for a new untried plant with information. You can be sure someone else has tried it and can set you straight.