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What’s this please!

CopperdogCopperdog Posts: 617
in Plants
Just found this in the border next to the phlox. What is it please and should I get rid of it? The stems are really thick 😱

Posts

  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Looks a bit like a Teasel, nice for the finches but in the wrong place in your borders. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Possibly Picris echiodes ... Bristly Ox-tongue?

    https://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/bristly-oxtongue

    I see its now called Helminthotheca echiodes ... just cos I can remember Picris 🙄 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    Is that it, gosh, never heard of that 😀. Is it related to the teasel. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • CopperdogCopperdog Posts: 617
    Thanks ladies! Should I pull it out? Or will it have a nice flower? X
  • hogweedhogweed Posts: 4,053
    I would leave it and see what it does. The unexpected is good!
    'Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement' - Helen Keller
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Think bees like the flowers ... I probably wouldn’t let it seed around tho 😧

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • CopperdogCopperdog Posts: 617
    Thanks everyone xx will leave and see what happens xx
  • josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
    It it's a teasel, the leaf bases will surround the stem, forming a vessel that fills with water when it rains, drowns insects indiscriminately and slops over your feet when you move the plants around.  The flowers are prickly and purple and attract bees.  The seed heads are reputed to be appreciated by goldfinches, and as they visit my feeders, I grew some teasels for their benefit.  The goldfinches still came, but only to the feeders; I never saw one of them eat a teasel seed.  The teasels still managed to distribute their seeds all over the garden, but I shan't get caught again, I'm weeding them out.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    Same experience for me with teasels spreading all over.  Never heard of the bristly picris tho I've seen them without knowing the name.   Plenty in the lanes round here actually and probably in our paddock which has been neither grazed nor sprayed nor mown for 30 months now and is a-buzz with insects and birds and, no dobt, western whip snakes.   OH saw one sunning itself earlier today.  Trying to get warmed up I expect.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    I think Dove is right, it is Bristly Ox tongue, the leaves are not right for teasel.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
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