What’s not to love about a native plant that’s:
- Gorgeous
- Seeds successfully in my garden, beating out all the crap weeds brought here by the birds and the breeze
- Free
It’s smartweed (Polygonum pensylvanicum), a summer annual that’s dispersed across the U.S. I love its 8 to 10-inch spikes covered with dark pink flowers from June through September.
People are asking me what this is and where can they buy it, so I know it’s not just me who appreciates smartweed. So again I say Up with Weeds! (Just not the ugly ones.)
Dwarf white pine
Now notice the cute little pine in the background? It’s another gorgeous native plant, though this one’s the cultivated variety ‘Blue Shag’, and even MORE people ask about it and obviously covet it. This one started out looking like a perfect mound and was mistaken for Mugo pine, but the needles are softer and now that it’s been allowed to do its thing for a few years, it seems to have a much more interesting shape. Earlier in the season it really IS blue.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Ben Fraley 09.11.08 at 12:12 pm
Very cool. I would definitely like this more than the creeping charlie i have at my house!
Carol, May Dreams Gardens 09.12.08 at 8:06 pm
Yes, I’ll admit smartweed looks pretty like that, but I’d be so tempted to pull it, since I learned to identify it as a weed long ago.
Maybe if some plant breeder got ahold of it and bred it to have bigger flowers or different colors? Or if it was some new “exotic”? Ha ha, then we gardeners would flock to it!
Layanee 09.13.08 at 6:51 pm
I have some of that native plant threading through my garden. I don’t mind it! It is better in a large mass as seen in your photo though.
bogie 09.14.08 at 6:06 am
Last night I was telling my husband that I wished I knew what a weed was growing by the peas. Now I know.
Thanks!
Bryan 11.20.08 at 11:28 pm
I have these pop up in several areas and have learned to just let it grow. It really brings in the Japanese beetles in my area, which I try to promptly capture and kill. They seem to like this even more than my zinnia’s, canna’s, and hibiscus so I use it as a distracter.
Wayne Tollison 05.17.09 at 7:54 pm
Where can I buy Smartweed you have on your blog.
susan harris 05.17.09 at 8:03 pm
Wayne, I really wouldn’t know but you might Google “wildflowers” since it’s a native plant.