Friday, January 15, 2010

a plant hitchhiker

Last July I bought some small tubestock plants from interstate and in the process of growing them on over the coming months some of the plants started to grow a tiny grey leafed plant beside them in the pots. As they didn't look like any of the weeds I know I left them to see what they would turn into. Now they have flowered with tiny mauve flowers like a miniature snapdragon. It could be a Linaria.

4 comments:

  1. Looks like a Linaria to me too. I happen to like the wild (yellow) toadflax we have around here, and I quite like that one too. I hope it's not going to be a problem plant. One thing I've learned is that one person's happy plant is another's barely-survivor is another's pest, depending on where we all live.

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  2. I couldn't agree more Jodi. I think it is too delicate to become a weed but everyone is so sensitive about plant "invaders" these days.

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  3. I have some of these hitchhikers in our garden as well, challenging the definition of a weed being a plant that grows where we (!) don't want it to grow. Luckily for the 'migrants' we have a very liberal attitude towards weeds; as long as we can contain them in their given spot & they don't reseed like nutters they are allowed to stay - bees & butterflies love them anyway.

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    Replies
    1. Weeds need to given a review in general as in learning to live with them and learning from them as to their potentials for encouraging beneficial insects.

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