Any idea what plant this is?

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

It's in the middle of a patch of dead headed bluebells and lemon balm that's about to get strimmed down and I don't know what is and whether I should save it.

It has a brown stem and then it goes green where the leaves sprout.

Any ideas? Thank you.

Is it an ash sapling? Can you post a pic of the stem?

The middle pic has stem.

I don't think we have any ash trees nearby for it to have seeded. But the kids did bring conkers that the squirrel planted and I've been pulling out horse chestnuts!

I forgot to say that it's only about 80cm tall.

That was my thought too Nicky. We've got masses of the little buggers, but they get pulled before they get to this size.

I can take another photo if required :)

not ash but it might be a chestnut!

I know it's not a chestnut. I can spot those.

Whatever it is, it doesn't come out when pulled! I've just given it a good yank and it's barely moved.

I have loads of these at the moment. It's definitely Ash. You can pull them out when they're about 4 inches or less but any bigger and you have to dig them out. If you just cut the stem they keep growing back. They're a nightmare!

This is from my tree book..

I gave masses of ash saplings in my garden, I am constantly finding and pulling them, they are really strong. They need digging out. Your photo looks exactly like my ash saplings, though I do have a weeping ash in the garden, so if makes sense that I gave do many saplings.n

Bugger. I keep pulling other trees out of the garden. The horse chestnuts I can understand (kids and bloody conkers). The sycamores, beech and now an ash... no idea where they came from!

Thanks everyone :)

I'm going to strim it because I'm too lazy to dig it up and I want to get my plants in asap before they die in their packaging.

I have so many just springing up everywhere that I end up pulling what I can, rather than digging them out properly. I know I'm creAting a rod for my own back long term, but between the saplings, ground elder, bindweed and green alkanet, I spend about 90% of my time in the garden weeding!

Perhaps I should leave that bit as the wild bit rather than putting in my naice shrubs

I have a similar wild area behind the trampoline. I can't see it very well so I pretend it isn't there.