Hi everyone. We have this really nice and fast growing plant ( weed? ) in our new yard. Can anyone identify it for us? It was fairly small 2 -3 months ago but now has basically doubled if not tripled in size. Thank you for your knowledge.
Not sure, but I think it is Japanese anemone, or probably a hybrid. Note Anemeone hupehensis (var. japonica) is native to China and cultivated and naturalized in Japan. http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/taxon.pl?105307 http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200007452
Sure looks like Japanese Anemone. Lovely plant. It started out as a tall (up to 5 ft), pretty addition to a perennial bed. It ended up as a problem. This stuff should come with a warning label "Agressive - Hard to control - Suckers madly - Handle with care - Give propagated bits only to people you don't like". Possibly a radioactivity symbol would be appropriate. I have been uprooting suckers that remain from a clump for 4 years now. I describe it a a plant that gets "angry" when you try to dig it up. By that I mean that the remaining bits of the fleshy, food-storing underground stems "break" (divide their growing tip) into many smaller growing points...and so on ad infinitum. Other plants that are hard to get rid of as a result of this particular trait (round here) include Acanthus (Bears Breeches) & the notorious Japanese Knotweed (Polygonum spp.). Note: Comments apply to Fraser Valley. I suspect Nanaimo would be about the same. Enjoy it. Just keep it contained - as it appears to be in the picture IMO. gb.
OHHHHH it is starting to spread that's for sure. Hence we thought it was a weed. Well I guess it spreads like one. We have a camellia beside it right now that I guess we'll have to move. I guess we'll have to wait and see what it looks like when and if the flowers come out. Thanks to both of you for the info.
Isn't it extraordinary how people's experience differs? I love this plant, but cannot get it to thrive, survive, even. I shall go and look if last year's planting (my last attempt, some things you just can't grow) is showing any signs of life. It's a very late spring with us. Yes, looking quite good, I'll come back in a few years when it gets to be a problem.
nic...you're in Scotland! Aberdeen, what is more. We are in the parts of SW BC (Nanaimo, Fraser Valley) where almost everywhere becomes a super-sized temperate rain forest in short-order, if left alone. Scotland is a much tougher place to grow things, being further North, windswept & having cooler summers etc. Plant behaviour can be very local in my experience. An agressive widespread invader right here may be a hard-to-grow species not 100 miles away. gb
I agree with glassbrain. We had a beautiful Japanese Anemone in an island bed with trees, shrubs and various small perennials. It expanded to fill the whole bed, smothering smaller things. Last autumn we "rescued" all that remained of the smaller stuff, and moved them to a new clean bed. All that remains now is an entire bed FULL of Anemone, its roots deeply entangled in the roots of the large shrubs/ trees. The only solution is Glyphosate to get rid of it.
Fence it & try chickens? Wales, Hmm? Try sheep. Treat it as lawn for a couple of years, ours could not survive repeated mowing. Lots of good mulch for the compost. Interesting point, I do not balieve that ours produced viable seed. Does this plant seed itself in Wales, or Scotland? ...curious to be in BC discussing Japanese Anenemy with people in Celtic countries. We really have mixed-up the flora of the planet, haven't we? gb.
Never seen it produce seed here in NE England either; it grows and flowers well but only spreads slowly (roughly half-way between S Wales & Aberdeen, both in location and vigour). Don't think sheep or chickens would work, like most plants in the buttercup family it is poisonous.
That's the interesting thing about gardening, (one of them) the diversity, isn't it?I could grow things in my garden that my sister in rural Perthshire, about 70miles south of here couldn't, because we are between two rivers, and really quite sheltered because of granite walls and hills and the closeness of the sea. Aberdeen gets cut off, with road, rail and air links closed because of the weather, when it's not actually that bad in the city itself. Similarly, Aberdeenshire can be basking in a heatwave, but the city is shivering because the Haar has come in.(seafret to Michael, sea mist, I expect, to everyone else). I have seen Japanese Anemones thriving in Aberdeen, just not with me, and if this clump doesn't prosper I shall give up, as I don't think it fair to beg plants from friends gardens, only to kill them. I have a theory that some people just can't grow some things, (well, me, anyway).
