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wild flower/ weed ?


littlebit

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Looks like spotted knapweed ( Centaurea stoebe ) to me. Weed? It is considered invasive but I guess it depends on your perspective. You can check at the corner bed of the library for a positive id. I had to laugh. Nancy who does the bed for the Down to Earth Garden Club put it in as part of her wildflower area while I was contemplating pulling it our on the embankment across from Harley Davidson.

 

 

Common_knapweed_492672.jpg

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53 minutes ago, littlebit said:

that is what I'm trying to decide, if I want it and where, last time I made my husband dig up some wild flowers they liked where I put them and "went wild" lol !

 

You can always remove it later if you find that you aren't in love with where it is and how it looks while not in bloom.  Some wildflowers simply look nasty before or after they bloom.  If you're growing for pollinators, then natives are always a hit with them and a shaggy look might not matter.

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You night want to think about the term "invasive" before you decide what to do with it. Usually it means that it spreads prolifically and is hard to get rid of. This one has a tap root so it will have to be dug out. The plant is a biennial or a short lived perennial so it won't live long but it will produce small plants around it in the form of rosettes. Most biennials produce lots of seeds so they can stay in business.

The flowers are pretty but the plant gets rather rangy after a couple of seasons. If you want to look at older ones they are growing along the railroad tracks around Wal-mart. The one in the area across from Harley-Davidson is at the end of the cultivated area. It produces lots of nectar and is popular with butterflies and moths which is why it is still there. That area was designated as a pollinator garden a few years ago. So far it hasn't spread into the cultivated area but it hasn't been there long.

The plant is also phytotoxic (sp?), which means it inhibits the growth of other plants. It won't kill off your whole garden but other plants growing near it may struggle and eventually die. It can also be a skin irritant so wear gloves when handling it.

I have a couple cultivated Centaurea  varieties and they behave well enough but don't stay where you put them. How bad the wild one spread I do not know but the "invasive" designation tells you something.

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I was out in the yard today and the ironweed (Vernonia) was in full bloom.  Mine is a species that gets to be about 7 ft. tall but V. glauca is shorter. I've just never seen that one  grow wild around here. The flowers are very similar to your picture. It didn't occur to me at the time because the knapweed was in bloom and I don't think the ironweed was. It is hard to tell the difference from a picture! Ironweed is a more upright plant and the individual stems all come up from the bottom. Ironweed is a very desirable plant. I've got three of them that may or may not all be of the same species. I know one of them was mislabeled as it grew way too tall for what it was supposed to be. Here is ironweed. 

 

1200px-Vernonia_noveboracensis_1.jpg

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It's amazing how many flowers look alike when taken out of context. So hard to tell from a picture. I thought I had Longwood Gardens baffled on one in their collection but the head of one of the sections recognized it from a picture that pstan took. Those folks are to commended for going above and beyond to be helpful. It turned out to be a new type of strawflower. 

I have a friend who transplants ironweed from the wild all the time. She stuck one up on the embankment bed last summer and it seems to be doing fine. All of mine have come in pots. One was dug from the wild, one I can't remember where it came from and the third came from Penn State Arboretum. That was the mislabeled one. It was supposed to be v. glauca but isn't. They seem to grow just about anywhere but do best in full sun. The one that does best is planted in an easterly direction and gets mostly morning sun and indirect afternoon sun.  The one that gets afternoon sun is in a wetter area and it blooms later and is less compact. It doesn't actually flop but it separates. The other is in fill and grows under a vine. It grows and blooms but not all that well. They may be different species but I doubt it. My soil is mostly clay but they don't seem to care. Good luck with it. It is a beautiful plant and the bees and butterflies love it. 

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