Help the triffids are going to get me!

[rolloverbeethoven]

I've always lived in flats until recently, but have been in a house for a few years. There's a yard, which is paved but a few plants sprouted which I rather liked, and bees & butterflies were attracted, which was lovely. But it's got out of hand - and I just don't know where to start. I don't want to kill any insects, or plants really, but I suppose I'll have to pull some up. I've also no clue which are weeds and which aren't. I'm wondering whether I should pay a gardener to sort it out, leave it be, or move house! Any advice would be very gratefully received.

We need pictures.

I have an app called plant identifier which is fantastic for figuring out what’s what, what to pull out and what to coddle. You can also reverse image search using google but that takes a bit more work.

No one knows what they’re doing at first, so don’t be hard on yourself. But it gets addictive and compelling after a while!

I also hate killing plants and usually the ones I give a little bit of freedom to, gang up on me!! Lemon balm, mint, artichokes, mullein... that was you!!

I like plants that get on with their own growing without too much fuss.. wild strawberries, lavender, sage, lupins, californium poppies and borage are my current favourites..

@ForPinkDuck I don't want to frighten you all!

blushes

Well I'd say they're pretty much all weeds and they seem to be growing through your paving. Is there any soil or is it all paved?

I'd actually pull them all up and then I'd put some plant pots in with small shrubs and flowers. It looks like you have a small space but you could easily make it lovely.

It's all paved. But I think the greenery is rather beautiful. I keep telling myself not to be daft, I eat vegetables so I should be able to pull plants up.

Those are all weeds. Buy a hoe and slice them all off at paving slab level.

I can see dock, nettles and it looks like something has invaded your house as well !

Yes, grass is growing in my houseplant! This is starting to seem like the beginning of a horror film isn't it? 😂

Totally with you. I had a Leylandii hedge which I got rid of last year. I had a fence put up instead. For the last month, the weeds have proliferation and triffids have taken over. I don't have good health and I'm wobbly so I have put off pulling them but I must be the talk of the street!

You could pull/cut/mow the ones in the middle so there's a path, but leave the ones against the wall.

I'd remove any dock and nettles regardless of position though. They're hard to get rid of, the flowers aren't that nice, and in a year or two they'll have taken over completely with no other species there any more.

Both dock and nettles are edible, so look up a few recipes if you don't want to compost them.

iNaturalist is good for identifying wildflowers/plants, and it adds to scientific research/mapping.

Like others have said, a few pots could look nice - you could sprinkle wildflower seed mix in them.

Crikey, it isn’t that bad 😁 There’s a lot of broadleaved dock which doesn’t look good in a garden. It’s also impossible to pull up, so if you can’t dig it out, cut it off at ground level and keep cutting if it reappears.

Gardening is about intention. Letting Mother Nature run riot does not count as 'intentional'.
Don't get sucked in by those lifestyle programmes which imply that beautiful, abundant wildflower meadows spring up of their own accord. They don't, and - as you have found - you usually end up with ugly, invasive weeds instead.
Where you can, put in robust groundcover plants which will out-compete the weeds. Examples are creeping thyme, sweet woodruff or succulents (houseleeks, stonecrop, etc). However the best 'between the cracks' plants IMO are Mexican Fleabane. They can be a bit thuggish, though, so they will cure you of your policy never to destroy a plant.

But I don't think they're ugly, I think they're rather beautiful. (But I also like mice, rats, pigeons, spiders, slugs and all the rest of the unloved).

A thousand gardeners, a thousand opinions... Do what you think looks nice! Maybe cut off the pollen/seeds off dock/nettles though, it'll keep it more manageable.

Give me your address and I'll send you all my slugs and snails. You can have the squirrels, too!

Ooh squirrels! I haven't seen any around here, but I wouldn't trust dcat not to knock seven bells out of the poor things 😮

I was going to suggest Mexican Fleabane as well. That, and Evening Primrose, have pretty much taken over our paved areas though if they are hardy some herbs will grow too. We have wild marjoram (perfectly good for cooking with) parsley, fennel for instance, that have sneaked their way in. We also have Cape or German Ivy which can be a real pest but luckily winter frosts keep in in check in our garden.

The difference between a patch of weeds and a garden is the presence of design, selection, and stewardship. A patch of weeds can be beautiful in its own way, but it will be dominated by the thugs of the plant world - those that spread quickly and easily and out-compete for space and light.

In a tiny garden, every plant must earn its place by contributing beauty across multiple seasons - providing long flowering, or evergreen structure, or attractive foliage; berries, seed-heads, or winter form. A seasoned gardener chooses plants with distinct roles and arranges them with intention.

The aim is to create a garden that changes continuously through the year while retaining a sense of coherence and purpose. Even the smallest garden can feel rich and atmospheric when each plant is selected to contribute more than a single moment of colour, or some greenery in June and July.

So it depends whether you're happy with a limited range of plant bully boys (weeds) with the strongest ones taking over and strangling out everything else, or you want a curated space that changes and develops throughout the seasons.

Maybe thin it out a bit, but think of all the insects that are living there. Lots of butterflies/moths lay there eggs on nettles and docks, which then feed the caterpillars, some of the caterpillars will then be eaten by birds or fed to their chicks.

I would rather have intentional things in pots. You could plant that entry way up beautifully with all sorts of pollinator/wild flower type things.

If you left pots full of soil out there those same plants would grow in the pots without you doing a thing! And you could move them to sweep and keep the alley looking smart and tempt.

But it's up to you! Your space to do with as you please!

See, this is my mindset. Last year there were so many butterflies and bees, it was amazing.

haha there was something about the look of your photo that reminded me of the area I grew up in and lo and behold I saw the county council name on the bin!
is it the only county with pebble dash and those decorative wall bricks ?

It’s only a weed if you don’t want it there . Poppies would really like those gaps in the paving, so you can sow poppy seeds in the Spring, or toss them around in the Autumn. You can also have things in pots, hardy geraniums, all sorts of Spring bulbs.