By Bernard
Cambridgeshire,
United Kingdom 
Oh dear me, I'm struggling!
I am in the midst of my hands and knees journey through my woodland garden to root out the villains and am overwhelmed by the enormous number of seedlings appearing.
If I start too early when the seeds have just germinated, to my untutored eye they all look the same, just two tiny leaves, so I leave it a bit until the tiny plants have developed a bit further, but I still find I can't identify most of them.
What I need, I think, is some sort of pocket reference to weeds in the early stages of their development that I can refer to as I crawl about with my nose 6" above the ground. In time, I suppose I could produce my own guide, but at the grand old age of 80, time is not on my side.
Any thoughts you lovely people have on the subject would be really welcome.
12 Apr, 2011
Answers
Hi Bernard, Yes I have the same challenge.....if you find a weed seedling pocket reference book be sure to tell me about it, I can't believe there isn't one already on the market....so I'm still looking.....if I find one I'll be in touch.
12 Apr, 2011
the best thing to do is plant your nice plant seeds regimentaly and in order . the weeds then will be the plants that dont grow within the lines or grid etc making life a lot easier x .
12 Apr, 2011
I don't think that would be really appropriate in a woodland setting, Nosey. A lot of the plants that appear are not always weeds and if I knew what they were, I might want to keep them. Some really nice plants have arrived courtesy of passing birds, my problem is being a total amateur and not being able to sort the good from the bad.
12 Apr, 2011
Well, when it comes down to it, good is what you like and bad is what you don't - so if you leave just a few of the ones you have a lot of you will see what they are and whether you want them. The main exception I would make is goosegrass - pull it out as soon as you see it or it will take over and seed everywhere. In general I find the ones there's lots of are the ones you don't want!
12 Apr, 2011
Thanks for your thoughts. I think I will have to resort to
creating my own picture-based checklist, but it will be very time consuming as my time has to be shared with several other hobbies/interests and there isn't a lot of it to spare.
It would be a consolation if I could offer it to other GoYers, but I don't doubt everyone will have a different list - some of the names that have been mentioned in the answers are completely unknown to me.
13 Apr, 2011
Maybe the GoY site could have a weed identifier section similar to a plant finder and we can all add to a picture-based identifier.....so experience of the weeds we know can be shared?
14 Apr, 2011
as allen titchmarsh so rightly said a weed is simply a plant in the wrong place .
14 Apr, 2011
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There are some weed seedlings here, Bernard -
http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/weedseedgs.htm
but I'm sure you know all these already.
This site -
http://theseedsite.co.uk/weeds.html
classifies the weeds according to flower colour, not useful when you want to get them out before that point, but there are pictures of each weed at the seedling stage as well.
I find you get to recognise your enemies after quite a short while. My daily foes, gorse and sycamore, aren't here, but I find them easy to spot and can't control the impulse to pull them out - even when out somewhere else.
12 Apr, 2011