what's this????

[sacbina]

Plant or weed? ? Its taking over my front garden!

looks a bit like mallow,
i would treat it like a weed

Probably Hollyhock (which is in the Mallow family).

Ah ha. Thank you all.

So is a weed then?

No - not if its a hollyhock - should grow really tall and have flowers all up the stem. Look it up. They self seed and only flower on second and subsequent years - they are beautiful, proper cottage garden plants.

And mallow have lovely flowers too (purple in this photo).

Oh no. Not a weed. I was just doing a search. There's not enough room for those giants! !

Hollyhocks? They are lovely tall annuals and come in a variety of different colours. They aren't weeds, they are quite beautiful flowers. They self seed though so can get about a bit.

Mallows are similar but perennial and tend to have purple flowers.

Let them flower and decide if you like them. If you do, collect the seeds and sprinkle them elsewhere

I can never tell hollyhocks and mallows apart - they're the same family, and I have no idea how you do it when there are no flowers. If anyone can enlighten me, I'd be grateful!

as mewling says, why not let them flower? If you hate them, you can get rid of the heads before they seed, and root up the plants. If you love them, then you can encourage them!