‘A weed is a plant that is growing in the wrong place.’
‘A weed has little virtue and lots of drawbacks!’
‘A weed aint necessarily weedy, it can be quite aggressive.’

Common Weed Problems

• Some weeds grow in the expense of your cultivated plants taking nourishment, sun and space from more needy subjects.
• Nettles and brambles not only invade but get their retaliation in first by stinging or scratching the unwary.
• Weeds that self-seed freely such as dandelions and willow herb end up growing in the most inconvenient spots.
• Lawn weeds like clover and common daisies advertise the gardeners lack of application and break up the nice green sward we are aiming to grow.
• Bindweed can choke your prize flowers sooner than you can say columbine.

Common & Uncommon Garden Weeds

Below is a list of over 100 weeds . I think I will hand my garden over to nature and let them thrive. (well may be not all of them).

Meadow-grass, Barren brome, Black bent, Black bindweed
Black medick, Black nightshade, Black-grass, Bracken
Bramble, Broad-leaved dock
Bulbous buttercup, Canadian fleabane
Caper spurge, Cat’s-ear, Charlock, Cleavers
Cock’s-foot, Coltsfoot Common amaranth, Common bent
Common chickweed, Common couch
Common fiddleneck, Common field-speedwell
Common fumitory, Common hemp-nettle
Common mouse-ear, Common nettle, Common orache, Common poppy
Common ragwort, Common sorrel, Common toadflax, Corn chamomile
Corn marigold , Corn spurrey Cow parsley, Creeping bent
Creeping buttercup, Creeping soft couch grass
Creeping thistle, Curled dock
Cut-leaved crane’s-bill , Daisy, Dandelion
Dwarf spurge, Evening-primrose, Fat-hen
Field bindweed, Field forget-me-not
Mare’s or horsetail, Field Madder, Field pansy, Field penny-cress
Flixweed, Fool’s parsley, Gallant soldiers, Garlic mustard
Giant hogweed, Goat’s-beard
Greater plantain Ground elder, Ground-ivy , Groundsel
Hairy bittercress, Hairy Tare, Hedge bindweed , Hedge mustard
Hemlock, Henbit dead-nettle Himalayan balsam, Hoary cress
Hogweed, Ivy-leaved speedwell, Japanese knotweed, Knotgrass
Lesser celandine, Lesser trefoil, Long-headed poppy, Meadow buttercup
Mouse-ear-hawkweed, Mugwort, Nipplewort
Onion couch, Oxford ragwort, Pale persicaria, Parsley piert
Perennial rye-grass, Perennial sowthistle
Perforate St John, Petty spurge, Pineappleweed, Prickly lettuce
Prickly sow-thistle, Procumbent pearlwort
Red dead-nettle, Redshank
Ribwort plantain , Rosebay willowherb
Rough meadow-grass , Rushes, Scarlet pimpernel
Scented mayweed, Scentless mayweed, Selfheal Sheep’s sorrel
Shepherd’s purse, Slender speedwell, Small nettle, Smooth hawk
Smooth sow-thistle, Soft brome
Spear thistle, Spear-leaved orache Sticky mouse-ear, Stinking chamomile
Sun spurge, Swine cress Thale cress, Thorn-apple
Thyme-leaved speedwell, Volunteer cereals, Volunteer oilseed rape
Volunteer Potato, Wall Barley Wall speedwell, Weed Beet
White campion, White clover Wild radish, Wild-oat Water Avens
Winter wild-oat, Yarrow, Yorkshire fog

Dealing With Weeds in Ponds

Weeds: The Story of Outlaw Plants by Richard Mabey

The Book of Weeds by Kenneth Thompson

Other Resources

Most Common Weeds
Common Lawn Weeds
Weed control of Avens
Horsetail and Mares-tail
Why war with weeds
For tips on Organic weed management visit Garden Organic
Royal Horticultural Society RHS ‘Gardening for All’
National Council for Conservation of Plants and Gardens ‘Conservation through Cultivation.’
BBC Gardening