Day 194: not weed

Daily details from the garden to bring you inspiration throughout the year

One of those meetings where you can’t quite place the individual before you, though something about them seems so familiar. Perhaps a nervous tick, a way of holding the head and regarding you after speaking, or something altogether more nebulous that has you reaching to place them. For me, plant encounters are full of such frustrations – here, everything from the spray of small white flowers to the zig-zagging path of the stems between each node had was yelling KNOTWEED at me, and though clearly not Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica), it looked very much like something from the family Polygonaceae. Not woody enough to be shrubby, not really bog-brushy enough to be a bistort... but maybe that was getting closer and, sure enough, under the ‘Ps’ in Great Dixter’s nursery listings, Persicaria alpina (syn. P. polymorpha, or Koenigia alpina). It’s a handsome face to be able to put a name to.


A year of garden coaching

To find out more about my my 12 month online garden coaching programme, please visit the website, where you can read more details and add your name to the waiting list to be the first to hear when enrolment opens up again for the spring.


Click here to sign up for daily #gardeninspo365 posts and blog updates direct to your inbox.


Sign up for the monthly newsletter below


Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, blogger, podcaster, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking the image above.

ko-fi