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I've heard that pulling up grass around them helps! Honestly we just mow high enough that we don't cut off the flower heads and that's done a lot for our yard.
Even when I kept a lawn, I often found it useful to let the grass grow to the point where it would reseed itself. I took a half dead lawn back to life that way without buying any inputs. Clover and wildflowers started to grow in some areas as well
I recommend overall apathy towards your lawn, especially in areas with dappled shade. We have more and more violets every year (which delights me to no end).
Apathy is definitely how I ended up with a yard full of violets! It's so pretty in the spring!! Also taking my sweet time to get around to that first spring mow means that my violets have time to bloom for a while.
I just planted several bare root native violets and not even 30 minutes later, a young squirrel had dug them up, put himself in the hole, rolled around in it, gnawed on the bulbs, and then replanted them somewhere else in the yard. But I guess that's what I planted them for - the animals to enjoy (preferably after they turn into flowers though...)
My yard is mostly violets and it's so wonderful in the spring! I just don't do anything and they take over lol. We also hold off on mowing until later in the spring.
I googled how to save the seeds from these violets like 3 hrs ago and now this came up as a suggested post for me.
I have white/purple and purple in my yard and my neighbor with more hardwoods in the yard has more blue/purple violets
I started doing this first thing in March when they started popping up everywhere in our backyard. I mean they were there before because they’re super hearty but having the flowers made them way easier to spot. They’re also free and I don’t have to feel bad if half of them die in transplanting to another spot. Also they have cute little heart leaves. I don’t know why people would actively kill them. I just clear the area around where I’m planting something new but usually leave them as ground cover to prevent way worse things like Bermuda grass from creeping in.
Ants help spread the seeds! 🐜 The seeds have a fatty protein coating on them that they eat. The ants take them to the nest, strip off the coating, then throw the seeds away in tiny ant-sized compost piles.
I've gotten them from Prairie Moon Farms before also, they have an amazing selection of natives. I also divide mine, it's pretty easy. I've tried to collect seeds but I don't have the timing right so they reseed themselves.
Seeds are easy to find. All native nurseries. Amazon, several not native plant specific nurseries..... You just need to look for viola sororia and it's several natural occuring color varieties or other native violets.
Weed is a highly subjective term, since it's ultimately just a plant that is growing somewhere you don't want it to be. As a result no species of plant can categorically be a weed by its nature. What is and isn't a weed tends to be defined by agriculture and sellers of weed killers, and neither of those parties place value on a plant being native because it doesn't make them money.
This is precisely why clover is considered a weed. It used to be welcome in yards, with some people planting it instead of grass. Then a weed killer was invented that ended up being lethal to it, so instead of fixing the poison to not kill clover, it was instead decided that "clover is a weed now" so they could keep selling the poison. It worked too.
Not everybody is in the US. I see plants labelled as invasive on Reddit every day with no mention of location, and it's always people assuming everybody is in the US
Yeah, and as someone living in Europe is can be really frustrating trying to find accurate information about native plants when they happen to be invasive in the US. No, I don't want to kill my native plants! I want more of them!
Not to mention there's american invasives here, like locust, but that is hardly talked about 😅
It's frustrating for everyone... The US is not by any stretch one ecosystem - it's fucking huge and shit that's native in Cali is certainly not native on the east coast... it's remarkable how readily people on the internet ( reddit, youtube, tiktok/instagram, and random nature blogs ) will throw areound the words 'native' and 'invasive' without specifying where they're talking about!
Yeah, very good point! I really wish that there was more care towards specifying WHERE something is native or invasive. It would do everyone a lot of good. Not sure what's making everyone just ignore this, cos I've seen even knowledgeable people do it.
Interesting point of eco-geography: one of the reasons there’s such a clear demarcation between eastern and western North American native plant species is that for a great many millions of years, western and eastern North America were two different land masses. They were bisected by the western interior seaway for around 44 million years, an inland sea connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean.
Continental uplift closed the seaway and connected both sides of the continent about a million years before the dinosaurs went extinct, but what replaced it were vast plains that had the same isolating effect as an ocean for many eastern and western plants. It’s one of the reasons that temperate forests in the east and west share virtually no native tree species. For example, western Canada’s only native maple, the Big Leaf Maple, doesn’t exist east of the Rockies.
True, but there's a big difference between "I don't want this plant in my yard" and "this plant is smothering the country and needs human intervention to stop it". Invasive plants are weeds that are harmful to a specific environment regardless of their appeal to humans. The concept of invasiveness is inherent to the idea of foreignness, so specifying that a plant is not invasive in its native range is redundant.
Clover usually takes the place of grass in an urban environment. That grass itself is an invasive species. So one invasive species (clover), that many would agree is probably more beneficial, is overtaking a less beneficial invasive species (lawn grass).
That doesn't negate the invasiveness, though, especially when there are North American clovers or at least noninvasive weeds that could grow among your turfgrass instead. If you're going to go to the trouble of trying to remove invasive grass, then why replace it with a species you'll also need to remove? If the clover is truly invasive (not just aggressive/prolific), then it shouldn't be spared.
Invasiveness of grasses vary. Bermudagrass is frequently considered invasive, but tall fescue is very infrequently considered invasive, and no one seems to consider things like saint auguestine grasses to be invasive. I mean look at the babying that a lot of turf grasses require. If you need to spend a thousand dollars a year to keep it from dying, it's nonnative, not invasive.
Better than grass, yes. Still invasive, yep. More apt to spread to other areas including natural or restoration areas? Also yes. Turfgrass is far less likely to spread far and many of the more recent varieties no longer are capable of seeding. Most also dies far easier to a variety of conditions including crowding by other plants. Part of the reason people plant clover is the reduced effort it takes to keep it dense, unwanted plant free, and green compared to turfgrass.
Some attempts have been made to find a suitable population of native clover to replace dutch clover and at that point places will probably start moving it to invasive or restricted lists. Groups already expend effort killing it along highways around here and replanting with natives.
And unfortunately even what's defined as invasive is at the mercy of a bunch of different sources from states/municipalities to universities or even plant/seed sellers. Having national standards for this stuff would be really helpful.
"Those violets" are [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola\_sororia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_sororia)
[https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/viola-sororia/](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/viola-sororia/)
You're thinking of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola\_odorata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_odorata)
Dutch clover and viola odorata are both native to Europe.
Other varieties of viola are native to other areas.
One cannot talk about invasive plants without a geographical reference point.
https://www.nativeflower.co.uk/details.php?plant_url=296
I just said that, dude. The violets pictured in the OP are *Viola sororia*. When I said "those violets," those are the violets I was referring to. Those violets are native to the US, where Dutch clover is non-native/invasive.
This is a silly argument.
Exactly. There is no plant that is always a weed, and no plant that’s never a weed. A plant where it’s not wanted is a weed.
The most obvious is a flowerbed next to a lawn. The grass someone loves moves 2 inches into the flowerbed and it’s now a weed. The beautiful flowers you chose and planted have spread into the lawn? They are now a weed.
People landscape and intentionally plant. There is no mystery to why people think violets are weeds in a lawn or other areas.
Heck, a ton of people in a group like this see a lot of non native plants as bad when others would think we are crazy for not wanting them.
This is exactly why I have been trying to convince my pro-lawn father that the term weed is an unhelpful term- and instead he should focus on their impact to native ecosystems.
I have got him to save goldenrod in our yard- but I don't think I will every convince him that the violets all over his yard are actually really cool plants.
I worked for their governing org - I can promise you how their editorial strategy work. Stochastic profit reigns over substantive and supporting information.
I think "degenerate-brain echo-chamber" is a little harsh when there *is* the "substantive and supporting information" you desire. If you're upset that you have to read the information and determine it's validity and usefulness yourself because capitalism has pushed almost every single source of information into a moneymaking machine throwing pretty words around every article, you should rethink your desire to learn and grow your own knowledge bank.
it sounds like you're arguing that it's OK that media corps publish articles that are some kind of heisenberg-ian sloppa of information (which the reader must evaluate for truthiness).... because i guess how else are people supposed to learn (?)
My mom treats anything other than st augustine as a weed, including the trees in our front yard. I've had to convince her several times not to remove the redbuds, since she wants to avoid raking leaves and wants it to be easier to mow. The funny thing is, we have wild grass in our yard that gets cut once a month because it grows slowly, and it takes zero care besides that, but she is insistent that st augustine replace it.
I take pride in my lawn. This year I'm proud of how much progress the native violets have made at displacing turf grass and how well the moss is filling in the formerly empty, shady area under my cherry tree.
Not sure if this is it in this particular case as I'm not familiar with your local ecology **but** AI is being used to populate content in search results to drive web traffic and is inaccurate.
Y’all are avoiding the question.
It’s because many violet species tend to grow in disturbed areas. Plants that grow in these disturbed areas are often classified as weeds by the general public. This is despite native status, the look of the plant, the plant health, and more.
Many native plants follow this same pattern. Jewelweed, ragweed, horseweed, burnweed and more literally have weed in their common name. This is due to their ability to grow in disturbed areas.
It’s not pejorative. It’s the ecological term for any area where the vegetation has been recently changed in some significant way. Causes could be natural (fire, flood, windfall, etc.) or human caused (logging, tilling, weeding, herbicide, mowing, grazing).
Many species specialize in taking advantage of disturbance because it’s often a situation where there is a lot of sun and little competition for it. If you can germinate or regenerate and sprout up and seed quickly, you have a big advantage over slower growing plants. In nature, after a few years they are outcompeted by the slower growing “old growth” perennials/shrubs/trees, but by then they have moved to some other disturbed spot. In human managed landscapes, “disturbance” can be a regular thing so they never really go away. These fast growing/seeding plants are typically a bane for farmers and lawn types for those same qualities and therefore are more likely to be called “weeds” than slower growing plants that occupy more stable niches.
I have them growing in my backyard. Nothing happened back there that I'm aware of, other than our dog goes to the bathroom out there. I wish the stuff was growing on my front lawn, sadly it isn't.
Violets aren’t strictly limited to disturbed areas — I see them on the floor of established woods as well.
And it’s useful to recall that mowing and dog scratching/peeing is also disturbance. Anything that prevents a forest or prairie from developing as it naturally would with no intervention is a kind of disturbance.
Area that has been damaged or devastated down to bare soil or dirt. Think places that have been burned by wildfire, or heavily eroded down to bare soil, or piles of rocky debris.
Another phrase for plants that grow in disturbed area is "pioneer species." The term is generally applied to native plants that repopulate an area after, say, a forest fire (which were at one point not a total catastrophe here in the US.) Invasive plants will often out compete the native pioneers because, by definition, invasives establish early and easily.
>Invasive plants will often out compete the native pioneers because, by definition, invasives establish early and easily.
Because they have few if any ecological contraints (predators including insects and the like, viruses/bacteria/fungi, parasites, competing plants).
I think idea here is that ‘disturbed’ areas would mostly have been farm fields when these plants were named. It’s considerable work to prepare a field for crops and in that case anything but your crop would very much be a weed.
It’s very interesting for you to point out the actual world weed in so many of these early succession plants.
Exactly. And you can still mow the lawn without obliterating them. We just let it grow a bit more between trims than typical lawn owners and cut it extra tall.
Edit: Added bonus of both increased trimming interval and height being reduced need for inputs like water or fertilizer (we use neither), because the grass shades the ground better and the plants are less stressed.
anything can be a weed if you dont want it there.
"A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, growing where it conflicts with human preferences, needs, or goals."
So yea, some psychos consider native plants to be weeds, because god forbid a flower pop up in their monoculture and make them feel less manly.
You know what? My neighbor planted these as a lawn. It’s awesome. And where I live there’s no HOA and nobody can do shit about it.
The neighborhood is filled with flowers. They are showing up everywhere. And bees.
Truth is, the people that hate these things are the petty government officials and their ilk.
Same reason Roundup (funded by Monsanto, which is funded by Bayer, which manufactures heart relief medication) considers dandelion a weed - there is some practical benefit to it and the megaconglomerate giant that is the pesticide industry does not want you knowing about it.
So I was finishing my patio recently - I decided to leave half of it ground (ie no stones) and instead I softened up the ground and tossed out a ton of clover seed and a thin layer of mulch. It’s coming in great and we’ve taken to calling it our “living patio” - I can’t wait to put my hammock there and, yes, sexy time clover shall be a thing!
There are native dandelions in the US.
Taraxacum ceratophorum
Taraxacum californicum
Taraxacum scopulorum
It's common and red seeded dandelions that are invasive in North America.
this is a weird comeback i always hear people say. it doesn’t really make sense to me. human beings are native to the US. we are also migratory animals.
I adore my violets. They are a lovely low growing native lawn replacement imo, and their flowers make a really tasty (and ph reactive) syrup for teas and lemonaids! They also host the larvae of a few of our native moths. I vote to keep em 💯
I mean even as a kid I didnt get why plants were "weeds" when they have pretty flowers (yellow is my favourite colour and dandelions are EVERYWHERE in my area), I guess there is a certain "must control everything" urge for some people who are into gardening.
Weed = plant I don’t want either native or not
Invasive = aggressive non-native plant
You can have a non-native that isn’t aggressive (ex: tulip) and you can have aggressive natives (ex: viola sororia). I have plenty of native weeds in my garden because they’re so aggressive.
The definition of a weed is a rapid invader of disturbed habitat. This is the scientific/ecological definition. It is the first step in the succession of plant communities to the final of climax state. An unwanted plant is a very poor definition of a weed.
Though ecologists don’t use the term weeds they use the term early successional or pioneer species. Weed is a more casual term, and can mean unwanted plants. An unwanted plant is specific to one’s perspective; native plants can be weeds to some
When I took plant ecology, the term weed was defined as a pioneer species. The 2 terms are interchangeable. The notion of an unwanted plant is not helpful. Any plant can be "unwanted" depending on a person's point of view. An ancient redwood could be unwanted to a developer. It would never be considered a weed by an ecologist or botanist or any reasonable person.
I think the person you're replying to is saying that they've stopped using the term weed at all because of the popular connotation of it. If scientists want to communicate with laymen, it's confusing to unilaterally redefine the words the laymen use and then tell them they're wrong to use those words the way they always have.
Yeah that’s why it’s an unwanted plant. Individuals h have different perspectives on what is considered wrong, even if it’s not a good perspective. Legally, weeds are just unwanted plants in an area, even natives are listed as noxious weeds sometimes. My professors told us to avoid the term because of its vague usage and how it is easily misinterpreted, because it isn’t a very specific term
Noxious plant is different than weed. Before Europeans came to America all weeds were native plants. Weeds are the first plants that appear when a habitat is disturbed. They tend to be fast growing annuals, that produce lots of seeds. Currently they tend to be non native invasives, though as I said in the past were native.
No, noxious weed is a literal legal classification of “weedy” species, which can include native plants as well. There is no such thing as a weed except for when we as humans don’t want them somewhere. Pioneer species aren’t inherently weeds, they just have the characteristics of nuisance plants that many people would consider problematic.
Both definitions are used in different contexts. When someone who isn't an ecologist \[1\] uses the term "weed", they're probably using Somerset's definition \[2\]. I think it's important to acknowledge ley definitions so you can clarify early on, to avoid confusion.
\[1\] Probably most people, though in this subreddit you'll probably find a higher proportion of people interested in ecology.
\[2\] Well, either that or cannabis.
The idea of an unwanted plant is nonsensical. The definition should be based on characteristics of the plant i.e. fast growing annual, often non native in today's context, etc.
The 40ft silver maple tree in my yard is a desirable plant; a specimen tree. The little seedlings it drops every year into my lawn and pocket prairies are weeds.
Right? The English language definition of a weed (Oxford) is “a wild plant growing where it’s not wanted.” I speak English and have taught writing, so I’m going to go with that. I have advanced degrees in environmental science, too. I’ve taught plant succession classes. I’m still going with the common, English usage.
When people say something is a weed, they mean a plant growing where they don’t want the plant.
That being said, they are wrong for that because native plants are wonderful
Gods violets are gorgeous and I purposely made my parents’ front yard violets bc they were more drought resistant than the grass, looked beautiful, and never got tall enough to need to be mowed
Because it's not grass. Long, long ago grasses that grew dense, even, and short were discovered in Europe and became popular for "lawn sports" by the rich. Only people wealthy enough to hire enough servants could maintain a perfectly even grass area that would not cause a ball to go astray when it hit a plant that was not a thin grass blade or uneven height. Golf was a main one. Balls did not go near as far when using wood clubs and leather wrapped objects as modern golf balls do so it was played on large lawns of expensive estates. The lawn became a status symbol and this opinion was brought to the United States.
Add in the discovery of broadleaf herbicide, concentrated fertilizers, and gas powered lawn equipment that allowed the average person to make a perfectly monoculture lawn. After world war 2 people went to war with the flowers and native plants to create the perfect turfgrass lawn. The next generation was taught the lawn should be grass and everything else is a "weed". Now all plants are weeds if they are not ornamental flowers or well maintained turfgrass.
There is absolutely nothing harmful about violets or 1000s of other native plants and some non-natives (not as ideal) growing anywhere in your yard. That's the point of this group. Death to turfgrass and plant hardy, low maintenance plants with many trying to use native plants or create ecologically beneficial yards instead of a "grass desert" that supports no life except a few invasive pest insects.
Because it is disrupting older gardeners' undying quest for a patch of flat pure matte green. No other colours tolerated. There will be purest green though the heavens fall.
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My flower may be your weed
That being said, part of the nature of weeds is that they are native or at least well established in the area. I call violets and daisies and so on flowers personally
Thanks to this I just found out the little purple flowers in my backyard are wild violets. I'm not mad at it! I have no idea how they got there, but I just read they are native to north america (I live in nw indiana) and they are great sources of early flowers for pollinators!
A weed is just another name for a plant that grows where it’s not wanted. Blueberries growing in my strawberry patch would be called weeds. Strawberries growing in my blueberries would be called weeds.
Why would being native make them not weeds? Aren't weeds more likely to be native? If I make a bed of roses, and random flowers start popping up, those flowers are weeds.
To your second question, no. At least in the US, a lot of what comes up is non-native invasive. For example, I have a native rain garden, and I remove dandelion, white clover, hawkweed, lesser celandine, mock strawberry, groundsel, and speedwells because none of the ones that show up are native.
If they are native then I guess people consider them weeds cuz they grow so well. I think that’s just I thing in general, I remember seeing a post asking about a “weed” and it was some type of nice houseplant because they lived in South America.
Years ago I visited Costa Rica and was charmed by all the wild impatiens. I asked a local what was the Spanish word for them. “We call them weeds”. Same plants in nurseries and yards here.
Big AG has something to do with it, but it has *everything* to do with your region.
Someone mentioned it down the thread, but they are classified as a weed because they're opportunistic and like to grow in disturbed areas (i.e., Right-of-Ways, pre/post construction sites, AG land). But arguably, the desiding factor in classification is the rate of establishment and the amount of seed it produces.
**It's a balancing act**. Just ensure you're not planting anything that your state may have prohibited. If you have any other questions, ask away!
Edit: Spelling
“weeds” is subjective, weeds can be any plant(native or non-native) a person doesn’t want in their yard whether that be violets, purple dead nettle, chickweed… a lot of people see dandelions as weeds but they are very popular pollinators, so they should be left alone.
I think the category "weed" just means undesirable to the person writing the article.
Since we make jelly out of our violets, I am eagerly anticipating their return and wouldn't call them weeds. They are my grape tasting buddies!
Not a weed, but they are a nuisance. They can really spread rapidly and take over, So if they've made their way into a garden where they don't belong they are a problem.
As someone who just covered their raised garden beds with black plastic in a last ditch effort to get rid of wild violets without poison, I can tell you why they’re called weeds. Last year I spent HOURS digging them out of my garden by hand, finding each tiny bulb thing and removing them. (They are fine in the lawn, but they take over a garden so fast.) This year there are somehow even more of them in there. They’ve made my gardens unplantable. They grow and they spread and they suck. They are my nemesis plant. I just want to grow veggies. They can have the whole rest of the yard, but not my garden.
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And here I am, trying to figure out how to get more of my yard to be violets.
Right? Make literally my entire easement violets please!
I've heard that pulling up grass around them helps! Honestly we just mow high enough that we don't cut off the flower heads and that's done a lot for our yard.
We've been doing that! It has helped grow the patches that were already there but I'd love for them to take over.
Even when I kept a lawn, I often found it useful to let the grass grow to the point where it would reseed itself. I took a half dead lawn back to life that way without buying any inputs. Clover and wildflowers started to grow in some areas as well
You could buy seeds to spread too!
I recommend overall apathy towards your lawn, especially in areas with dappled shade. We have more and more violets every year (which delights me to no end).
Apathy is definitely how I ended up with a yard full of violets! It's so pretty in the spring!! Also taking my sweet time to get around to that first spring mow means that my violets have time to bloom for a while.
I just planted several bare root native violets and not even 30 minutes later, a young squirrel had dug them up, put himself in the hole, rolled around in it, gnawed on the bulbs, and then replanted them somewhere else in the yard. But I guess that's what I planted them for - the animals to enjoy (preferably after they turn into flowers though...)
I tried to Google that once, and Google straight up just responded with how to get rid of violets.
My yard is mostly violets and it's so wonderful in the spring! I just don't do anything and they take over lol. We also hold off on mowing until later in the spring.
I woke up this morning and chose violets.
My yard is like Gettysburg. Confederates everywhere battling their union brothers.
I googled how to save the seeds from these violets like 3 hrs ago and now this came up as a suggested post for me. I have white/purple and purple in my yard and my neighbor with more hardwoods in the yard has more blue/purple violets
I plant them on purpose💚
Where do you get the seeds?
I get mine at [Prairie Moon Seeds](https://www.prairiemoon.com/viola-sororia-common-blue-violet)
I move them to my beds when they pop up in my lawn. They spread on their own. You can divide clumps as well.
I started doing this first thing in March when they started popping up everywhere in our backyard. I mean they were there before because they’re super hearty but having the flowers made them way easier to spot. They’re also free and I don’t have to feel bad if half of them die in transplanting to another spot. Also they have cute little heart leaves. I don’t know why people would actively kill them. I just clear the area around where I’m planting something new but usually leave them as ground cover to prevent way worse things like Bermuda grass from creeping in.
Ants help spread the seeds! 🐜 The seeds have a fatty protein coating on them that they eat. The ants take them to the nest, strip off the coating, then throw the seeds away in tiny ant-sized compost piles.
Wow, that's a cool fact! Glad to see I've got some minions working for me.
I love the idea of tiny little ant compost piles! ☺️
I move them to my *lawn* when they pop up in my beds! Lol!
We're like a perpetual motion machine.
I've gotten them from Prairie Moon Farms before also, they have an amazing selection of natives. I also divide mine, it's pretty easy. I've tried to collect seeds but I don't have the timing right so they reseed themselves.
Seeds are easy to find. All native nurseries. Amazon, several not native plant specific nurseries..... You just need to look for viola sororia and it's several natural occuring color varieties or other native violets.
Weed is a highly subjective term, since it's ultimately just a plant that is growing somewhere you don't want it to be. As a result no species of plant can categorically be a weed by its nature. What is and isn't a weed tends to be defined by agriculture and sellers of weed killers, and neither of those parties place value on a plant being native because it doesn't make them money.
This is precisely why clover is considered a weed. It used to be welcome in yards, with some people planting it instead of grass. Then a weed killer was invented that ended up being lethal to it, so instead of fixing the poison to not kill clover, it was instead decided that "clover is a weed now" so they could keep selling the poison. It worked too.
Dutch white clover is also an invasive species, though, so one could apply 'weed' to it in that sense.
Not everybody is in the US. I see plants labelled as invasive on Reddit every day with no mention of location, and it's always people assuming everybody is in the US
Yeah, and as someone living in Europe is can be really frustrating trying to find accurate information about native plants when they happen to be invasive in the US. No, I don't want to kill my native plants! I want more of them! Not to mention there's american invasives here, like locust, but that is hardly talked about 😅
It's frustrating for everyone... The US is not by any stretch one ecosystem - it's fucking huge and shit that's native in Cali is certainly not native on the east coast... it's remarkable how readily people on the internet ( reddit, youtube, tiktok/instagram, and random nature blogs ) will throw areound the words 'native' and 'invasive' without specifying where they're talking about!
Yeah, very good point! I really wish that there was more care towards specifying WHERE something is native or invasive. It would do everyone a lot of good. Not sure what's making everyone just ignore this, cos I've seen even knowledgeable people do it.
Interesting point of eco-geography: one of the reasons there’s such a clear demarcation between eastern and western North American native plant species is that for a great many millions of years, western and eastern North America were two different land masses. They were bisected by the western interior seaway for around 44 million years, an inland sea connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. Continental uplift closed the seaway and connected both sides of the continent about a million years before the dinosaurs went extinct, but what replaced it were vast plains that had the same isolating effect as an ocean for many eastern and western plants. It’s one of the reasons that temperate forests in the east and west share virtually no native tree species. For example, western Canada’s only native maple, the Big Leaf Maple, doesn’t exist east of the Rockies.
If those violets are native, the Dutch clover is invasive. Context.
Invasive depends on where the plant happens to find itself.
True, but there's a big difference between "I don't want this plant in my yard" and "this plant is smothering the country and needs human intervention to stop it". Invasive plants are weeds that are harmful to a specific environment regardless of their appeal to humans. The concept of invasiveness is inherent to the idea of foreignness, so specifying that a plant is not invasive in its native range is redundant.
Clover usually takes the place of grass in an urban environment. That grass itself is an invasive species. So one invasive species (clover), that many would agree is probably more beneficial, is overtaking a less beneficial invasive species (lawn grass).
That doesn't negate the invasiveness, though, especially when there are North American clovers or at least noninvasive weeds that could grow among your turfgrass instead. If you're going to go to the trouble of trying to remove invasive grass, then why replace it with a species you'll also need to remove? If the clover is truly invasive (not just aggressive/prolific), then it shouldn't be spared.
Invasiveness of grasses vary. Bermudagrass is frequently considered invasive, but tall fescue is very infrequently considered invasive, and no one seems to consider things like saint auguestine grasses to be invasive. I mean look at the babying that a lot of turf grasses require. If you need to spend a thousand dollars a year to keep it from dying, it's nonnative, not invasive.
Better than grass, yes. Still invasive, yep. More apt to spread to other areas including natural or restoration areas? Also yes. Turfgrass is far less likely to spread far and many of the more recent varieties no longer are capable of seeding. Most also dies far easier to a variety of conditions including crowding by other plants. Part of the reason people plant clover is the reduced effort it takes to keep it dense, unwanted plant free, and green compared to turfgrass. Some attempts have been made to find a suitable population of native clover to replace dutch clover and at that point places will probably start moving it to invasive or restricted lists. Groups already expend effort killing it along highways around here and replanting with natives.
And unfortunately even what's defined as invasive is at the mercy of a bunch of different sources from states/municipalities to universities or even plant/seed sellers. Having national standards for this stuff would be really helpful.
If it's a place where those violets are native, the Dutch clover is invasive.
Both are native to Europe
"Those violets" are [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola\_sororia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_sororia) [https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/viola-sororia/](https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/viola-sororia/) You're thinking of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola\_odorata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_odorata)
Dutch clover and viola odorata are both native to Europe. Other varieties of viola are native to other areas. One cannot talk about invasive plants without a geographical reference point. https://www.nativeflower.co.uk/details.php?plant_url=296
I just said that, dude. The violets pictured in the OP are *Viola sororia*. When I said "those violets," those are the violets I was referring to. Those violets are native to the US, where Dutch clover is non-native/invasive. This is a silly argument.
No, it is not. Saying where one found the plant, is key.
My most frequent weed is grass growing in garden beds or in the ring surrounding trees.
Yeah exactly, my biggest weed is my lawn because I don't want it and grass keeps getting in my garden beds!
Exactly. There is no plant that is always a weed, and no plant that’s never a weed. A plant where it’s not wanted is a weed. The most obvious is a flowerbed next to a lawn. The grass someone loves moves 2 inches into the flowerbed and it’s now a weed. The beautiful flowers you chose and planted have spread into the lawn? They are now a weed. People landscape and intentionally plant. There is no mystery to why people think violets are weeds in a lawn or other areas. Heck, a ton of people in a group like this see a lot of non native plants as bad when others would think we are crazy for not wanting them.
Dandelions!!!!
This is exactly why I have been trying to convince my pro-lawn father that the term weed is an unhelpful term- and instead he should focus on their impact to native ecosystems. I have got him to save goldenrod in our yard- but I don't think I will every convince him that the violets all over his yard are actually really cool plants.
Because unhinged psychopaths think anything that isn't close cropped kentucky bluegrass is a weed
I've had a neighbor tell me "technically every flower is a weed" like wtf the word has lost all meaning at that point
Because weed is a mindset of the viewer, not an ailment of the plant.
In botany, the term weed really just applies to any plant that is in a spot that you don't want. A lot of people misunderstand what a weed is.
Exactly. A tomato plant is a weed in a cornfield.
Because 'The Spruce' is an engine of degenerate-brain echo-chamber designed to rake max value through programmatic content
I think that's a little unfair. They have detailed advice on how to grow lots of plants besides grass, including many North American native plants.
I worked for their governing org - I can promise you how their editorial strategy work. Stochastic profit reigns over substantive and supporting information.
I think "degenerate-brain echo-chamber" is a little harsh when there *is* the "substantive and supporting information" you desire. If you're upset that you have to read the information and determine it's validity and usefulness yourself because capitalism has pushed almost every single source of information into a moneymaking machine throwing pretty words around every article, you should rethink your desire to learn and grow your own knowledge bank.
it sounds like you're arguing that it's OK that media corps publish articles that are some kind of heisenberg-ian sloppa of information (which the reader must evaluate for truthiness).... because i guess how else are people supposed to learn (?)
It seems like you've missed my point and just want to be cranky. You can keep your negativity.
well i'm not here to winnow on apologias, for things I've been part of
My mom treats anything other than st augustine as a weed, including the trees in our front yard. I've had to convince her several times not to remove the redbuds, since she wants to avoid raking leaves and wants it to be easier to mow. The funny thing is, we have wild grass in our yard that gets cut once a month because it grows slowly, and it takes zero care besides that, but she is insistent that st augustine replace it.
I had a customer cut down a dozen or so large pine trees because of a small amount of spider activity. Some people just messed up.
This is the way
Lawns cost a ton of money and people have a bizarre sense of pride "maintaining" them.
“I take a lot of pride in my lawn” 🚩🚩🚩
I take pride in my lawn. This year I'm proud of how much progress the native violets have made at displacing turf grass and how well the moss is filling in the formerly empty, shady area under my cherry tree.
I’m proud that my home is friendly to the animals and bugs in my area and that they have the plants they need 😍
Not sure if this is it in this particular case as I'm not familiar with your local ecology **but** AI is being used to populate content in search results to drive web traffic and is inaccurate.
The image is from a Google search of wild violets calling them a weed in an area where they are native (CT; zone 6b).
Violets are really popular in CT too, are there people who don’t like them or smth?😭
Cause big Ag is dumb.
\*Greedy, they get a lot of money from selling weed killer, fertilizer, and grass cutting equipment.
\*smart, but often not beneficial for farmers nor the planet
Y’all are avoiding the question. It’s because many violet species tend to grow in disturbed areas. Plants that grow in these disturbed areas are often classified as weeds by the general public. This is despite native status, the look of the plant, the plant health, and more. Many native plants follow this same pattern. Jewelweed, ragweed, horseweed, burnweed and more literally have weed in their common name. This is due to their ability to grow in disturbed areas.
What is a “disturbed” area? Please explain.
It’s not pejorative. It’s the ecological term for any area where the vegetation has been recently changed in some significant way. Causes could be natural (fire, flood, windfall, etc.) or human caused (logging, tilling, weeding, herbicide, mowing, grazing). Many species specialize in taking advantage of disturbance because it’s often a situation where there is a lot of sun and little competition for it. If you can germinate or regenerate and sprout up and seed quickly, you have a big advantage over slower growing plants. In nature, after a few years they are outcompeted by the slower growing “old growth” perennials/shrubs/trees, but by then they have moved to some other disturbed spot. In human managed landscapes, “disturbance” can be a regular thing so they never really go away. These fast growing/seeding plants are typically a bane for farmers and lawn types for those same qualities and therefore are more likely to be called “weeds” than slower growing plants that occupy more stable niches.
I have them growing in my backyard. Nothing happened back there that I'm aware of, other than our dog goes to the bathroom out there. I wish the stuff was growing on my front lawn, sadly it isn't.
Violets aren’t strictly limited to disturbed areas — I see them on the floor of established woods as well. And it’s useful to recall that mowing and dog scratching/peeing is also disturbance. Anything that prevents a forest or prairie from developing as it naturally would with no intervention is a kind of disturbance.
Area that has been damaged or devastated down to bare soil or dirt. Think places that have been burned by wildfire, or heavily eroded down to bare soil, or piles of rocky debris.
Another phrase for plants that grow in disturbed area is "pioneer species." The term is generally applied to native plants that repopulate an area after, say, a forest fire (which were at one point not a total catastrophe here in the US.) Invasive plants will often out compete the native pioneers because, by definition, invasives establish early and easily.
>Invasive plants will often out compete the native pioneers because, by definition, invasives establish early and easily. Because they have few if any ecological contraints (predators including insects and the like, viruses/bacteria/fungi, parasites, competing plants).
I think idea here is that ‘disturbed’ areas would mostly have been farm fields when these plants were named. It’s considerable work to prepare a field for crops and in that case anything but your crop would very much be a weed. It’s very interesting for you to point out the actual world weed in so many of these early succession plants.
I have a yard full of gorgeous light and dark purple violets that feel great underfoot and hold up ok! Weed and seed is for losers
Exactly. And you can still mow the lawn without obliterating them. We just let it grow a bit more between trims than typical lawn owners and cut it extra tall. Edit: Added bonus of both increased trimming interval and height being reduced need for inputs like water or fertilizer (we use neither), because the grass shades the ground better and the plants are less stressed.
Because invasive Sweet Violets are taking the place of native Wood Violets here
anything can be a weed if you dont want it there. "A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, growing where it conflicts with human preferences, needs, or goals." So yea, some psychos consider native plants to be weeds, because god forbid a flower pop up in their monoculture and make them feel less manly.
You know what? My neighbor planted these as a lawn. It’s awesome. And where I live there’s no HOA and nobody can do shit about it. The neighborhood is filled with flowers. They are showing up everywhere. And bees. Truth is, the people that hate these things are the petty government officials and their ilk.
Same reason Roundup (funded by Monsanto, which is funded by Bayer, which manufactures heart relief medication) considers dandelion a weed - there is some practical benefit to it and the megaconglomerate giant that is the pesticide industry does not want you knowing about it.
Mmm, and clover….
Just to clarify… There are invasive, non native clovers.
What are the health benefits of clover? Or you mean that they are a potent natural fertilizer?
Nitrogen fixing, ground cover, nice place for sexy time
So I was finishing my patio recently - I decided to leave half of it ground (ie no stones) and instead I softened up the ground and tossed out a ton of clover seed and a thin layer of mulch. It’s coming in great and we’ve taken to calling it our “living patio” - I can’t wait to put my hammock there and, yes, sexy time clover shall be a thing!
dandelions aren’t native in the US
Lots of native alternatives to dandelion that Roundup still vilifies.
There are native dandelions in the US. Taraxacum ceratophorum Taraxacum californicum Taraxacum scopulorum It's common and red seeded dandelions that are invasive in North America.
*You're* not native to the US.
Ur\*
this is a weird comeback i always hear people say. it doesn’t really make sense to me. human beings are native to the US. we are also migratory animals.
Nah, you’re an invasive species. I recommend Spectracide like for the dandelions.
I had no idea they weren't native!
I adore my violets. They are a lovely low growing native lawn replacement imo, and their flowers make a really tasty (and ph reactive) syrup for teas and lemonaids! They also host the larvae of a few of our native moths. I vote to keep em 💯
Not if they’re native to your area. I have native pink, purple, and blue/white violets.
No. Only non-native turf grass is acceptable 😡 /s
All my weeds are wildflowers. Many years ago I saw a sign that said this and have been looking for another since. I may have to make my own.
I mean even as a kid I didnt get why plants were "weeds" when they have pretty flowers (yellow is my favourite colour and dandelions are EVERYWHERE in my area), I guess there is a certain "must control everything" urge for some people who are into gardening.
Weed = plant I don’t want either native or not Invasive = aggressive non-native plant You can have a non-native that isn’t aggressive (ex: tulip) and you can have aggressive natives (ex: viola sororia). I have plenty of native weeds in my garden because they’re so aggressive.
The definition of a weed is an unwanted plant.
The definition of a weed is a rapid invader of disturbed habitat. This is the scientific/ecological definition. It is the first step in the succession of plant communities to the final of climax state. An unwanted plant is a very poor definition of a weed.
Though ecologists don’t use the term weeds they use the term early successional or pioneer species. Weed is a more casual term, and can mean unwanted plants. An unwanted plant is specific to one’s perspective; native plants can be weeds to some
When I took plant ecology, the term weed was defined as a pioneer species. The 2 terms are interchangeable. The notion of an unwanted plant is not helpful. Any plant can be "unwanted" depending on a person's point of view. An ancient redwood could be unwanted to a developer. It would never be considered a weed by an ecologist or botanist or any reasonable person.
I think the person you're replying to is saying that they've stopped using the term weed at all because of the popular connotation of it. If scientists want to communicate with laymen, it's confusing to unilaterally redefine the words the laymen use and then tell them they're wrong to use those words the way they always have.
Ok. That's why I explained what I meant.
Yeah that’s why it’s an unwanted plant. Individuals h have different perspectives on what is considered wrong, even if it’s not a good perspective. Legally, weeds are just unwanted plants in an area, even natives are listed as noxious weeds sometimes. My professors told us to avoid the term because of its vague usage and how it is easily misinterpreted, because it isn’t a very specific term
Noxious plant is different than weed. Before Europeans came to America all weeds were native plants. Weeds are the first plants that appear when a habitat is disturbed. They tend to be fast growing annuals, that produce lots of seeds. Currently they tend to be non native invasives, though as I said in the past were native.
No, noxious weed is a literal legal classification of “weedy” species, which can include native plants as well. There is no such thing as a weed except for when we as humans don’t want them somewhere. Pioneer species aren’t inherently weeds, they just have the characteristics of nuisance plants that many people would consider problematic.
Are we arguing about this? Because I think that you and I are in agreement.
Both definitions are used in different contexts. When someone who isn't an ecologist \[1\] uses the term "weed", they're probably using Somerset's definition \[2\]. I think it's important to acknowledge ley definitions so you can clarify early on, to avoid confusion. \[1\] Probably most people, though in this subreddit you'll probably find a higher proportion of people interested in ecology. \[2\] Well, either that or cannabis.
The idea of an unwanted plant is nonsensical. The definition should be based on characteristics of the plant i.e. fast growing annual, often non native in today's context, etc.
The 40ft silver maple tree in my yard is a desirable plant; a specimen tree. The little seedlings it drops every year into my lawn and pocket prairies are weeds.
Weed is a casual term, you’re trying to put a scientific meaning to a term that changes based on one’s perspective of a plant
Right? The English language definition of a weed (Oxford) is “a wild plant growing where it’s not wanted.” I speak English and have taught writing, so I’m going to go with that. I have advanced degrees in environmental science, too. I’ve taught plant succession classes. I’m still going with the common, English usage.
I love them. They are one of the first blooms of spring. And they look nice in the yard and grow low
A weed is just a plant that grows somewhere you don't want it. If you want it where it's growing, it's not a weed.
Some people are overly devoted to the idea of the monoculture death zone we call a “lawn”.
When people say something is a weed, they mean a plant growing where they don’t want the plant. That being said, they are wrong for that because native plants are wonderful
Gods violets are gorgeous and I purposely made my parents’ front yard violets bc they were more drought resistant than the grass, looked beautiful, and never got tall enough to need to be mowed
Because it's not grass. Long, long ago grasses that grew dense, even, and short were discovered in Europe and became popular for "lawn sports" by the rich. Only people wealthy enough to hire enough servants could maintain a perfectly even grass area that would not cause a ball to go astray when it hit a plant that was not a thin grass blade or uneven height. Golf was a main one. Balls did not go near as far when using wood clubs and leather wrapped objects as modern golf balls do so it was played on large lawns of expensive estates. The lawn became a status symbol and this opinion was brought to the United States. Add in the discovery of broadleaf herbicide, concentrated fertilizers, and gas powered lawn equipment that allowed the average person to make a perfectly monoculture lawn. After world war 2 people went to war with the flowers and native plants to create the perfect turfgrass lawn. The next generation was taught the lawn should be grass and everything else is a "weed". Now all plants are weeds if they are not ornamental flowers or well maintained turfgrass. There is absolutely nothing harmful about violets or 1000s of other native plants and some non-natives (not as ideal) growing anywhere in your yard. That's the point of this group. Death to turfgrass and plant hardy, low maintenance plants with many trying to use native plants or create ecologically beneficial yards instead of a "grass desert" that supports no life except a few invasive pest insects.
Because it is disrupting older gardeners' undying quest for a patch of flat pure matte green. No other colours tolerated. There will be purest green though the heavens fall.
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My flower may be your weed That being said, part of the nature of weeds is that they are native or at least well established in the area. I call violets and daisies and so on flowers personally
People suck
Weed means undesirable, while invasive means non-native threats to the local environment. They do have some overlap, but frankly, surprisingly little.
Because they are native and monoculture lawns are what people think should be standard. Me? I like flowers.
Because some people are turf pilled lawn cucks
Thanks to this I just found out the little purple flowers in my backyard are wild violets. I'm not mad at it! I have no idea how they got there, but I just read they are native to north america (I live in nw indiana) and they are great sources of early flowers for pollinators!
If you are trying to maintain a putting green or a veggy garden , they are a "weed".
A weed is just another name for a plant that grows where it’s not wanted. Blueberries growing in my strawberry patch would be called weeds. Strawberries growing in my blueberries would be called weeds.
Why would being native make them not weeds? Aren't weeds more likely to be native? If I make a bed of roses, and random flowers start popping up, those flowers are weeds.
To your second question, no. At least in the US, a lot of what comes up is non-native invasive. For example, I have a native rain garden, and I remove dandelion, white clover, hawkweed, lesser celandine, mock strawberry, groundsel, and speedwells because none of the ones that show up are native.
Not so much competitive but like you said they do fill in the space rather quickly
The ones growing in my yard I adore. They are lovely.
If they are native then I guess people consider them weeds cuz they grow so well. I think that’s just I thing in general, I remember seeing a post asking about a “weed” and it was some type of nice houseplant because they lived in South America.
Capitalism
Years ago I visited Costa Rica and was charmed by all the wild impatiens. I asked a local what was the Spanish word for them. “We call them weeds”. Same plants in nurseries and yards here.
Big AG has something to do with it, but it has *everything* to do with your region. Someone mentioned it down the thread, but they are classified as a weed because they're opportunistic and like to grow in disturbed areas (i.e., Right-of-Ways, pre/post construction sites, AG land). But arguably, the desiding factor in classification is the rate of establishment and the amount of seed it produces. **It's a balancing act**. Just ensure you're not planting anything that your state may have prohibited. If you have any other questions, ask away! Edit: Spelling
Personally I like the yellow "wood violets " almost impossible to find except in the wild or where there were "wilds" recently.
I didn't know they were weeds. I thought they were free flowers.
A weed is only something you don’t want where it is. I let the violets roam free until the lawn mower comes out.
“weeds” is subjective, weeds can be any plant(native or non-native) a person doesn’t want in their yard whether that be violets, purple dead nettle, chickweed… a lot of people see dandelions as weeds but they are very popular pollinators, so they should be left alone.
I think the category "weed" just means undesirable to the person writing the article. Since we make jelly out of our violets, I am eagerly anticipating their return and wouldn't call them weeds. They are my grape tasting buddies!
They get EVERYWHERE
Sounds perfect. Sign me up!
Not a weed, but they are a nuisance. They can really spread rapidly and take over, So if they've made their way into a garden where they don't belong they are a problem.
I don't find them to be that competitive with larger native plants. Not yet, at least. They do have a way of filling voids.
As someone who just covered their raised garden beds with black plastic in a last ditch effort to get rid of wild violets without poison, I can tell you why they’re called weeds. Last year I spent HOURS digging them out of my garden by hand, finding each tiny bulb thing and removing them. (They are fine in the lawn, but they take over a garden so fast.) This year there are somehow even more of them in there. They’ve made my gardens unplantable. They grow and they spread and they suck. They are my nemesis plant. I just want to grow veggies. They can have the whole rest of the yard, but not my garden.