What is a weed?

I have sweet cicely and valerian, wouldnt be without them. Also have daisies which I love

A lawn is not a lawn without daisies! (I can almost hear the 'tut's of disgust from lawn lovers!)

Gosh orange hawkweed is very pretty but it is something I would not want in the garden - we accidentally let it in to our previous garden and we never could get rid of it - just think dandelions :-)

I love daisies on my lawn too

very pretty

x x x

I agree with you on that,Moon grower, it arrived in my garden from my next door neighbour - the worst gift she ever gave me. Daisies in the lawn - yes, definitely.
Difficult question as by definition, primroses and cowslips could be called weeds and I love both of those.

I was hoping for some discussion. There's hawkweed three gardens down on my terrace, but it's failed to migrate. I even picked a seedhead and sprinkled it around last year, but nothing so far. But the whole plant is quite attractive. Dandelions have lovely flowers, but the 'habit' of the plant itself is not very lovely.

It's certainly true that if, like me, you like and encourage "weeds" its just as much hard work "keeping them in their place" as it is encouraging cultivated plants.

OK readejahn here goes-It could be argued that all cultivated garden plants are weeds, after all, they all originated from the wild. we have only taken those with attractive properties and enhanced them through breeding. we take plants out of their natural habitat and place them in our gardens. If you look through the pictures on GoY you will see pics of wild lupins in the States and closer to home ferns(the craze for collecting ferns from the wild by the Victorians almost wiped them out in some areas). Violets are common weeds, are as ladies smock, poppies and all herbs, but we pay a fortune for them because we want them in our gardens. Gardening touches something deep within all of us, perhaps its a link to the time when humans had to forage or work the land to feed ourselves or provide natural remedies. As a species we have spent thousands of years doing that, and only a short while having it provided for us. it must be in our psyche to cultivate plants. the old saying is a weed is only a flower in the wrong place rings very true. find space for a few weeds in your garden. The leasehold might say it belongs to you but you have a wider responsibility to the environment and, weeds, as sources of food to other creatures plays a vital role. If I could I would support a ban on all weedkillers for home use

Daisies and speedwell - I just love the tiny sky-blue flowers :-)

I grow many british natives, wild flowers to the kindly, weeds to the unkind. too many favourites to mention.
What cultivated plant would you not grow or on finding them in your garden pull out?
Petunias are 'weeds' to me and i just dont grow them.

Oh boy Seaburngirl... I could list a whole heap of plants I and B would not give houseroom to in our garden... In fact we would not grow most plants :-)

When I lived in Britain I paid a fortune to have a Great Mullein in my garden. Now I can see them in the meadow sloping down into my gardem, but one self-seeded in the garden, so I have left it there. As a bienniel it will bloom this year and then die, but I'm feeling quite excited at the prospect of "owning" it. Apart from that I let the occasional daisy do its stuff before grubbing it out at the end of the season and as for the "thugs" - hairy bittercress, dandelions etc: out they go!

Well for me, in the US. Field pansy is my fav, I just let it go and for about a week in the spring the lawn is covered is tiny blue flowers before the grass shows green. Now "thugs" are definately dandelions and oops "English plaintains" Sorry guys! : )

I love daisies and am happy to grow them in my lawn, and I deliberately planted self-heal (which doesn't look all that great but isn't much trouble, just turning up in a different place every year, fairly unobtrusively.) I also get a bit of clover and black medick in my lawn which I don't mind either. I found some herb robert in a shady border spot recently and am letting it stay for the moment, but I might live to regret that.

Plants that are cultivated but turned up in my garden through selfseeding include muscari and the yellow corydalis - I let them stay although I need to try to keep them from taking over. I don't like dandelions at all though - I don't find them attractive in a lawn because of the size of the leaves and they colonise way too much.

Thanks all for your thoughts, esp Mageth.
Re herb robert, Elleme, I try to leave one or two each year, pulling most of them out, but the red leaves are so striking.
I have mixed feelings. My garden is really "informal", semi-wild, really, but tiny, so it has to be kept in a certain amount of order. I have many 'cultivated' plants which multiply as enthusiastically as weeds - hypericum (don't ask me which) for one, leycestria for another, astrantia, alcemilla mollis, the list is endless.
I guess if you love plants you love all plants, even the thugs.
Interesting to hear different points of view.