SoCal is not one of the places you would expect to find much of it, according to the article. "the plant has re-seeded naturally and grown wild in states such as Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota, with Indiana reporting the largest concentrations nationally"
Nit: I'm not an expert here, but I think cannabis or hemp more accurately describes the the plant, and marijuana is somewhat more likely to describe it as a drug. There's obviously a lot of overlap, and hemp can also describe the fibers, but never the drug.
You’re not only not kidding there can be wild disparities in opinion.
I have a type of bentgrass in my lawn (South Carolina, Transition Zone) lawn considered to be either a weedy grass or a desirable grass used on some golf courses. Of course, when I looked to buy seed for it this year to see about filling in some patches left by Po Annua I found it to cost several multiples of typical “proper” species (Bluegrass, Fescue)
So you have the gamut of worthless to worth-weight-in-gold depending on who bought them the house.
If you’re growing a food garden, often you’ll get some competition from weeds and lower yields (given the same water, fertilizer) unless you pull the weeds up.
Of course many weeds are beneficial for a variety of reasons, but it is dependent on context.
I agree with everything you said, except for your use of the fuzzy & needlessly derogatory blanket term 'boomer'. Every generation continues to do this because it's deeply embedded in our culture. The culture is the problem.
Landscaping can be done in a way that is fairly neutral with regard to whatever plants show up, unless there is a serious mismatch between desired plants and invasive species (also fuzzy terms). Fighting nature - even unintentionally imported nature - is a never ending, futile war. Minimizing artificial intervention should always be a primary objective and in no way requires broad-brush painting a massive demographic as the enemy.
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Very true, though there's a lot that are foreign and invasive too. Stuff that people brought over from Europe for their herb gardens 300 years ago that have since spread everywhere.
None of those are native species in California. Spotted spurge is native to eastern North America.
It can be useful to distinguish between weeds, which are wrong plant in wrong place, and invasives, which cause problems everywhere. Dandelion can be a weed, but also can be useful, Purslane is like that. None of those are considered invasive in San Diego, that requires removal. But the other aren't useful and spotted spurge is toxic.
I love the idea that all the plants we think-of as totally-normal-weeds could be (indeed, are) quite different across the world! Would love to be able to get a global sense of where the ones that I know well are distributed right now, and what other people are seeing when they walk-around (and it's rained a bit) instead! Anyone know of a good resource for anything like that?
Over in Adelaide, South Oz, an extremely common weed is 'Oxalis' (TIL: a type of 'Wood Sorrel'[1]) It's also called 'Sourgrass' or 'Sour-Sobs', colloquially around here. It seems to pop up nearly-anywhere-that-it-can and very quickly too once it's rained a bit at the start of winter. Also dies-off completely for a good chunk of the year and I think it has a bulb-like way (as well as its tiny seeds) of staying-there.
We also have bigger-than-garden-level problems (in the state) with stuff like Gorse, Broom, Blackberry (which seems especially invasive), Patterson's Curse, loads more! Heck even Nasturtium gets a pretty-good-go around here, though it's apparently not considered invasive yet [2].
There is an plant app I use thar will identify plants. Just take a picture of it. It tells you what it thinks the plant is and some other similar options. You get to select the winner by "adding to your garden" button. it tracks the plants in your garden.
One of the pieces of information the app gives you is what is the plant considered every where in the world. The types of categories I've seen on it are native, cultivated, exotic, invasive, and potentially invasive. The app is called Picture This. I do not want to endorse it, cause it is annoying to use sometimes. But I cannot lie that it has been extremely useful. I am very close to paying for it, since as a fellow programmer I understand the people making this need to make a living.
PSA: plant identification is built into the native iOS photo viewer. If it detects something the little circled “i” button will have magic sparkles added and you can see what it thinks is pictured.
I’m in Adelaide and was thinking this week that agapanthus has to be the most socially accepted weed (or close enough) in town. I can appreciate the value of greenery in a dry location though.
I have jasmine as a ground over and sour sobs through it are very difficult to weed out each year. Drives me nuts.
Those from the article that we get here are thistle and mallow AFAIK.
I couldn't agree more! Agapanthas are absolutely-everywhere around Adelaide but it's hard to call it a 'weed' when people are actively-planting-them all-over-the-place! (they love our climate but I don't think they are too-invasive, thank-goodness!!!)
Sure, it's a hardy-AF plant in SA (stays green, yaay) but it also completely dominates the landscape that it grows in, and has a particular smell (I'd call a stink, surely there are some that probably like the smell, so this is just an opinion).
I guess it also just doesn't seem to be going-anywhere to me, sorta stuck in its meme, especially if it's meant to be there as an ornamental plant. I know it has lots of plant-relatives over in Southern Africa where it is from.. and there's some cool variety there.. where's the breeding? It seems like people in SA planting them everywhere just fell into some default-standard-Agapantha-attractor and can't climb-out. Seems like a bit of a lack of imagination to me.
Yeah definitely see mallow around Adelaide quite a bit too!
The photo for what the article called thistle looked a bit more like a dandylion-of-sorts to me, I'd usually expect thistle to be spikier, but maybe this is what young ones do look like? I've certainly seen some (very spiky, vaguely artichoke-like) thistles about in SA as well!
Mallow is very common on farms and vacant blocks. Not overly ugly en masse at least.
I think there might be a huge variety of thistle forms. You get the gamut from small and smooth up to the thicker, spikier ones as far as Scotch Thistles, plus low, flat ones that escape the mower like stemless thistle - https://www.google.com/search?q=stemless+thistle&tbm=isch
In a backyard garden sense, I can cope with thistles, but things that infest soil like soursobs, mint, dichondra can get annoying. Watsonia, ivy and couch grass also give me grief.
Oxalis is a whole genus. There are native Oxalis, California has California woodsorrel, Oregon has Redwood woodsorrel. But there are invasive ones like Bermuda buttercup and Creeping sorrel.
I find this topic remarkable but typically unremarked upon. When I see a bit of scraggly grass persisting out from a crack in the hot California road in July, I'm amazed at its tenacity.
Some of these weeds help the soil. They grow in areas where other plants can't grow. But I understand that if you are trying to grow specific plants, for food or aesthetics, you will need to remove the plants that will kill them (vines or fast growing weeds that take the sun cover). I think dandelions help move calcium to the top soil, and loosen hard soil, is an example of a weed that helps.
I am adding more areas to my yard where I put a small garden fence and let whatever grow (minus trees), which will be mostly weeds I presume. This will help the local bees and insects and birds. I think there is a movement to do more of this, but don't recall the name of it.
After we destroy a piece of land, its gonna be weeds that will bring it back to life.
Purslane is actually really tasty to eat in scrambled eggs or soup. It's a decent spinach replacement too. Leaves are tiny so it takes a bit of effort to harvest.
If you know you have it, break a bunch off, wash it in a bowl to clean it, and also to harvest the tiny black seeds - dump the water+seeds out where you want more.
It does literally grow like a weed, and it's pretty good for you, with a fair amount of ALA/EPA omega 3's for a plant and vitamin C.
As with any foraging, you should also make sure that you know that you're actually harvesting purslane and not something else.
There are plants of a family called spurges that can be mistaken for purslane and are toxic. I don't have enough expertise to talk about how likely it is that you'll mistake spurge for purslane or how to identify.
They aren't that close in appearance. Spurges are woodier with flatter leaves and have an irritating white sap. This is not a plant likely to kill you if you ate a small amount of it, it's likely to cause burning/irritation in the mouth if you did make the mistake. Purslane you'll know it's correct if it tastes good, it's one of the best random green plants I've foraged. The only downside it seems to have is kind of high oxalate levels so it should be eaten sparingly or cooked especially if predisposed to kidney stones.
Article describing differences between the two plants: https://lawnphix.com/lawn-care/spurge-vs-purslane-lawn-weeds... unlike mushrooms or potential poison hemlock lookalikes I don't want to discourage foraging this, just take it slow (try small amount of anything new before eating a lot of it) and you'll be fine.
It appears that purslane is the same thing as vergoladas, sold in Mexican grocery stores (I am not an expert in this, I did a quick Google search and found a supporting article here: https://mexicanmademeatless.com/verdolagas-purslane-in-salsa... ). I’ve been trying to figure out what vergoladas is to English speakers. Very good as a green-salsa addition anywhere you’re using avocado, adds a peppery spicy flavor. Spoils quickly.
Thanks for writing this, it’s been bothering me for a year, and without your comment I wouldn’t have thought about the possibility of a connection.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that "spurge" he identifies looks like knotweed to me.
Edit: did some research, looks like he's right. Difference between the two is alternating leaves instead of side by side, and spurge has a milky sap. But otherwise appear the same
I’m surprised and happy to see Greg posted here on HN. He’s my go to resource for all things SoCal gardening. I always look forward to his weekly newsletter and even have his calendar which I use to keep track of when I fertilize and do other major tasks.
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[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 75.7 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_cannabis
SoCal is not one of the places you would expect to find much of it, according to the article. "the plant has re-seeded naturally and grown wild in states such as Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota, with Indiana reporting the largest concentrations nationally"
I have a type of bentgrass in my lawn (South Carolina, Transition Zone) lawn considered to be either a weedy grass or a desirable grass used on some golf courses. Of course, when I looked to buy seed for it this year to see about filling in some patches left by Po Annua I found it to cost several multiples of typical “proper” species (Bluegrass, Fescue)
So you have the gamut of worthless to worth-weight-in-gold depending on who bought them the house.
That’s literally the definition of the word weed.
Of course many weeds are beneficial for a variety of reasons, but it is dependent on context.
Landscaping can be done in a way that is fairly neutral with regard to whatever plants show up, unless there is a serious mismatch between desired plants and invasive species (also fuzzy terms). Fighting nature - even unintentionally imported nature - is a never ending, futile war. Minimizing artificial intervention should always be a primary objective and in no way requires broad-brush painting a massive demographic as the enemy.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
The acorn woodpeckers and/or squirrels keep planting them in places I cannot afford to have a tree. Its roots would eventually cause a lot of damage.
It can be useful to distinguish between weeds, which are wrong plant in wrong place, and invasives, which cause problems everywhere. Dandelion can be a weed, but also can be useful, Purslane is like that. None of those are considered invasive in San Diego, that requires removal. But the other aren't useful and spotted spurge is toxic.
Over in Adelaide, South Oz, an extremely common weed is 'Oxalis' (TIL: a type of 'Wood Sorrel'[1]) It's also called 'Sourgrass' or 'Sour-Sobs', colloquially around here. It seems to pop up nearly-anywhere-that-it-can and very quickly too once it's rained a bit at the start of winter. Also dies-off completely for a good chunk of the year and I think it has a bulb-like way (as well as its tiny seeds) of staying-there.
We also have bigger-than-garden-level problems (in the state) with stuff like Gorse, Broom, Blackberry (which seems especially invasive), Patterson's Curse, loads more! Heck even Nasturtium gets a pretty-good-go around here, though it's apparently not considered invasive yet [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalis
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropaeolum_majus
One of the pieces of information the app gives you is what is the plant considered every where in the world. The types of categories I've seen on it are native, cultivated, exotic, invasive, and potentially invasive. The app is called Picture This. I do not want to endorse it, cause it is annoying to use sometimes. But I cannot lie that it has been extremely useful. I am very close to paying for it, since as a fellow programmer I understand the people making this need to make a living.
I have jasmine as a ground over and sour sobs through it are very difficult to weed out each year. Drives me nuts.
Those from the article that we get here are thistle and mallow AFAIK.
Sure, it's a hardy-AF plant in SA (stays green, yaay) but it also completely dominates the landscape that it grows in, and has a particular smell (I'd call a stink, surely there are some that probably like the smell, so this is just an opinion).
I guess it also just doesn't seem to be going-anywhere to me, sorta stuck in its meme, especially if it's meant to be there as an ornamental plant. I know it has lots of plant-relatives over in Southern Africa where it is from.. and there's some cool variety there.. where's the breeding? It seems like people in SA planting them everywhere just fell into some default-standard-Agapantha-attractor and can't climb-out. Seems like a bit of a lack of imagination to me.
The photo for what the article called thistle looked a bit more like a dandylion-of-sorts to me, I'd usually expect thistle to be spikier, but maybe this is what young ones do look like? I've certainly seen some (very spiky, vaguely artichoke-like) thistles about in SA as well!
I think there might be a huge variety of thistle forms. You get the gamut from small and smooth up to the thicker, spikier ones as far as Scotch Thistles, plus low, flat ones that escape the mower like stemless thistle - https://www.google.com/search?q=stemless+thistle&tbm=isch
In a backyard garden sense, I can cope with thistles, but things that infest soil like soursobs, mint, dichondra can get annoying. Watsonia, ivy and couch grass also give me grief.
The leaves are edible (but sour, as its nicknames suggest) and can make a nice addition to a salad.
I am adding more areas to my yard where I put a small garden fence and let whatever grow (minus trees), which will be mostly weeds I presume. This will help the local bees and insects and birds. I think there is a movement to do more of this, but don't recall the name of it.
After we destroy a piece of land, its gonna be weeds that will bring it back to life.
If you know you have it, break a bunch off, wash it in a bowl to clean it, and also to harvest the tiny black seeds - dump the water+seeds out where you want more.
It does literally grow like a weed, and it's pretty good for you, with a fair amount of ALA/EPA omega 3's for a plant and vitamin C.
There are plants of a family called spurges that can be mistaken for purslane and are toxic. I don't have enough expertise to talk about how likely it is that you'll mistake spurge for purslane or how to identify.
Article describing differences between the two plants: https://lawnphix.com/lawn-care/spurge-vs-purslane-lawn-weeds... unlike mushrooms or potential poison hemlock lookalikes I don't want to discourage foraging this, just take it slow (try small amount of anything new before eating a lot of it) and you'll be fine.
Thanks for writing this, it’s been bothering me for a year, and without your comment I wouldn’t have thought about the possibility of a connection.
Edit: did some research, looks like he's right. Difference between the two is alternating leaves instead of side by side, and spurge has a milky sap. But otherwise appear the same
If you’re in our usda zone he’s worth a follow.