This is our fifth flower garden season. My greatest pleasure comes from having a great profusion of colours and shapes in the garden, so up until now, I've been experimenting with different plants and colours. Which makes for a colourful garden, but makes it difficult to remember and recognize anything from one year to the next.

One of our ongoing problems is being able to tell the weeds from upcoming flowers...I lost count of how many beautiful plants hubby has uprooted in his zealous attempt to help me with the weeding. I'm much more open to waiting and seeing what develops before tugging them out, but he can't seem to stop himself from pulling everything out once he gets started. (There are also a few bushes which won't flower because they need old growth, and he keeps cutting them down to the ground every spring, except this year.) This year, I forbade him to cut or weed until further notice.

I don't suppose there's any simple "rule-of-thumb" way to tell a weed from an unfamiliar flower in the early stages of growth? Is it just a matter of getting to know one's garden and recognizing what's supposed to be there and what's not?

Eagle Heart
I have the same problem since I moved into a new house in a new state, some of the plants are different here. I think you just need to let some of everything grow and see what comes up. Thats what I did. This year I know what the leaves look like on the flowers. The only rule I know is that, Anything growing where you don't want it to be growing, is a weed!

I don't feel perfection has a place in a garden. Let things come up where they may and get rid of the nasties later. If the squirels plant something and its beautiful why is that a problem? To me a garden is like a watched pot that doesn't boil. Let it go, watch, water and nurture it and you will be amazed how easy it is to get rid of the weeds....Enjoy, relax...

Chatty, that is exactly my viewpoint (but not hubby's)...if we had the space, I'd scatter hundreds of flower seeds all over the lawn and just watch what blooms. I love colour, variety, surprises...

The only thing I worry about in regard to the squirrels planting stuff is that the owners of those plants might think we snuck over in the middle of the night and dug them up (someone tried to pull one of our new rose bushes out the other night). That's why I hope it all evens out in the end, that the squirrels are taking some of my stuff over to their gardens too!