Help! Weed or Plant?!

You could try transplanting it into a pot and see how it develops.That way you save too much upheavel to your other plants if you later decide that you dont like it.

Certainly not Phlox, Gillian, but I am not at all sure what it is. I think you should do what Mcneil says and pot it up. Might be a treasure, might just be a Willow Herb - the flowers will tell us! About the paving - could you use weed killer there without it going onto your precious plants? Otherwise, I have a tool given to me by my husband that helps me to weed between my cobbles and paving - it's a sharp awl and I kneel down and run it along the cracks. This is quite effective.

I think I may take your advice and pot them up, probably the safest way to go.
As for weeding between the cracks, I am using a tool for cement pointing right now, which has a nice pointy end. I try to avoid any weed killers, guess I'll just keep digging them out (or plant the very small flat thyme to grow there instead of the weeds!).

Hi Gillian
I dont use weed killer either- for the paving I bought a gas burner last year (like a blow torch on a long handle) which works ok, They do come back but I guess they do whatever you use.

Hi Gillian difficult without flower but looks very much like Rose Baywillow herb to me.Flowers in small pink trumpet like blooms often in moist conditions generally regarded as a weed.Easy to up root .

Gas burner sounds a good option! I'll see how my knees hold up for the old fashioned way first though.

It could be Rose Bay Willow herb. Not too hard to pull up but seed like crazy if you let them! I'm going to pot some of it up and see what it becomes.

It's only a 'weed' if it's an 'unwanted plant in the wrong place'! (This one's a weed - get it out before it flowers).

I don't like using weedkillers. But stone or gravel paths are an exception, you have to be practical sometimes to leave you time to enjoy the garden, n'est pas?

Hi Gill... it's Goldenrod. If you don't want to keep it make sure you get the rhizomes underground ...they can take over and will keep coming up...yank them out.

Thanks Lori! That was my guess on the other photo I have up. As I started digging them up I found a large network of runners underground and it reminded me of a previous garden that was getting overun with it!
I'm still not too sure about the shorter plant to the left. There was a lot of that too. Deadly Nightshade perhaps?

glory be!... deadly nightshade....snidely whiplash.. haha..sorry having a flashback to my cartoon childhood.Sorry wouldn't know it if I saw it Gil.

ohhh yes, it's related to potatoes, isn't it solanum something or other?

sorry to be so clueless...just came in from outside and I'm hungry.... been redigging the pond AGAIN. I'm tired of rethinking it,,,just want to fill it and forget it for a bit.

Fireweed?

I looked at the plant on the left again... did it blossom Gillian? thought it might have been a mirabilis jalapa...
if it was fireweed - it would have grown to 3 ft tall and an airborne seeder... the seeds are attached to a fluffy little parachute...flowers would have been magenta/purplish. a rather pretty plant but invasive.

Thanks all! I did find out that they were definitely goldenrod, so I turfed them out. Nice as goldenrod is, I simply don't have the space for it here.
The other smaller plant was deadly nightshade as I suspected, so that went too.
Thanks for everyone's input!

Great! All's well that ends well!