The benefit of not using Preen or any other pre-emergent herbicide in the garden is that I enjoy LOTS of volunteer seedlings in my garden. Some of these are desirable plants (Cosmos, redbuds, asters, milkweeds, arrowwood viburnum, last year even a sassafras tree!).
On the other hand, the drawback of not using a pre-emergent is that I do have to hand-weed the beds to remove unwanted volunteers such as crabgrass, clover, wild grape and love-in-a-mist. (I planted that last one myself before I realized it was give me approximately a bazillion volunteers every year. So now I'm trying to rectify my mistake.)
And then there are the unknowns. Even our local extension agent couldn't pin a label on the photos below. So I'm hoping to crowdsource the answer through the magic of the World Wide Web and all you gardening wizards out there. Any ideas?
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| Handsome. Symmetrical. Weedy? |
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| These next three photos might all be the same species, though they're not the same specimen. |
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| Vigorous for sure. |
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| Healthy and strong, but is it desirable or pernicious? |
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| This deep green beauty with toothed leaves popped up in the front border amid some Agastache. Should I keep it or give it the heave-ho? |
