Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Plant ID

Options
  • 22-10-2018 10:23am
    #1
    randomguy
    Registered Users Posts: 285 ✭✭


    Quick question. We recently bought a house. The previous owners had done some planting, and we are trying to work out which plants in the raised beds are worth keeping, and which are weeds/undesirables.

    There is a plant that I like - it looks a bit like a small "Little Shop of Horrors" plant, BUT there are already three of them in one bed, each about a foot or a foot and and a half across, and I think I saw a fourth popping up elsewhere in the bed, and a fifth popping up in the middle of the lawn (which is making me think it is a weed).

    Keep or kill? Photos attached


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    looksee
    Registered Users Posts: 28,435 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    Looks like lungwort, aka soldiers and sailors. I rather like them. They are a garden plant but can be a bit weedy in that they do pop up everywhere once you have them. I would take out the one in the lawn - by the time you are mowing again it will be a bit sturdy! The others are fine if they are where you want them. I'd put them together in a quiet corner and let them get on with it.


  • Options
    #3
    looksee
    Registered Users Posts: 28,435 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    I was just wondering if they might be native (they are not) and came across this rather nice article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/8345936/Pulmonarias-Common-but-rather-special-too.html


  • Options
    #4
    randomguy
    Registered Users Posts: 285 ✭✭randomguy


    Thanks a million, Looksee. That is definitely it (one of the three plants had managed to grow up inside/underneath a shrub, appearing when the shrub was removed, so it does seem like it can grow under any cover).

    I do like the variegated dark green leaf (even if it is a bit toad-like) and based on the article you posted it is good for flowers and colour in late winter and spring.

    Verdict - Keep (but dig out the strays).


Advertisement