Thoughts on Seattle's weeds
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| My weed experience is considerable. For 24 years, I maintained voluntarily an educational, labeled, weed garden at the Seattle Tilth garden in Wallingford. My website contains 100 Weed-of-the-Month articles. Additional weed information is presented in my book Wild Plants of Greater Seattle. Finally, both at home and for clients, I've plentiful weed-control hands-on practice. |
For Seattle, it can be useful to divide our weeds into two broad categories: garden pests, and wild-area invasives. If I had the sudden power to wave a magic wand, to instantly eliminate my choice of 12 species in each division, below are my choices.
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| Garden Pest weeds: |
| Annual Bluegrass |
| Bishop's Weed / Goutweed |
| Bracken N |
| Creeping Buttercup |
| Creeping Yellow Sorrel |
| Dwarf Fireweed |
| Hairy Bittercress |
| Horsetail N |
| Nipplewort |
| Lady Fern N |
| Pearlwort |
Sheep Sorrel
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| Native-area wild landscape invasive weeds: |
| Atlantic Ivy |
| Bittersweet Nightshade |
| Creeping Buttercup |
| English Holly |
| Eurasian Water-Milfoil |
| Herb Bennet |
| Himalaya Blackberry |
| Hybrid Japanese-Knotweed |
| Norway Maple |
| Reed Canary-Grass |
| Yellow Archangel |
Wild Clematis
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Note the minimal overlap: only Creeping Buttercup. And those 3 native (N) species that I'd banish from gardens, I'd permit in wild areas. The weed police are too politically corect to declare any natives "noxious." But people in the real world know a weed is merely an unwanted plant. Some species that many people loathe, are wild vegetables of superb quality, such as Wild Morning-Glory (Bindweed) and Garlic Mustard. Incidentally, 87% of the above weeds have been eaten by humans.
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(originally published in my February 2014 newsletter)
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