Ten ‘Popular’ weeds


Japanese Knotweed and Bindweed making a happy display on my allotment every summer!

We made a new video showing ten more common weeds, which after this post hopefully will also be more popular! Unfortunately the embedding did not work this time so please click on the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=777Or-msBFo

A brief description of the weeds with pictures by my partner Matt Summers, unless stated differently, follow below this introduction. Most weeds have been covered in a more detailed post in earlier posts and then mostly about their whole family for which there is a link on the start of each plant description.

Weeds are not at all bad; they are just inconvenient for us human beings!

Maybe we were just going to plant another more attractive plant in that place or maybe we desperately needed that exact spot for making a new drive for all our vehicles we need to park in front of our house? Or another more common reason is to just remove it as it looks aesthetically not pleasing to our tidy eyes!

Don’t worry I can just be as bad sometimes and not have a really proper reason for removing a weed…

But this is the exact reason why I write about them and try to make us see all their known good uses they got.

All their bad reasons for existence are mentioned already on many websites and this is hopefully not why you came to my site in the first place?

Continue reading “Ten ‘Popular’ weeds”

Bindweeds and Dodders

This week I would like to talk about a bit of a climbing menace known as the Common or Hedge Bindweed (Calystegia sepium). Then later about the fascinating Dodders!

The whitish rhizomes and growing shoots of Hedge Bindweed or Calystegia sepium.

Is there any use to this plant you may wonder?

Please read on and find out!

I will also write about the rest of its family; the bindweed family or Convolvulaceae!

Blue background is for general interest; pink background is for medicinal use or negative information; green background for all sorts of uses. Pictures by Matt Summers unless stated. If the plant occurs in Birmingham and the Black Country, this is mentioned as FBBC in the contents page.

The Bindweeds are in the Convolvulaceae or Bindweed family, which is number 115 in Stace in between the Boraginaceae (114) and Solanaceae (116), which is the potato family.

This family has 4 genera growing in the British Isles namely; Convolvulus,  Calystegia, Ipomoea (which are ‘introduced’, mostly ornamental climbers from N. America) and finally Cuscuta  or Dodder.

Contents:

Calystegia or Bindweeds

Convolulus arvensis or Field Bindweed FBBC

Cuscuta or Dodders

Cuscuta epithymum or Common dodder/ Devil’s Guts

C. europaeae or Greater Dodder

C. campestris or Yellow Dodder FBBC

Continue reading “Bindweeds and Dodders”