Friday 16 April 2010

Hairy Bittercress


Hairy Bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta) is a common weed of gardens, greenhouses, paths, railways and waste ground. It is a plant ideally constituted to be a weed - it likes disturbed ground and bare soil; it can grow from seed to a plant shedding seeds within three weeks; it has pods that explode sending the seeds a distance from the plant; and the seeds can remain viable within the soil for at least ten years.



I wonder how many gardening years of work are spent getting Hairy Bittercress out of our gardens?

1 comment:

  1. 10 years!!! My garden must contain thousands of the seeds. At least they're an easy weed to pull up. Speedwell looks so innocent, but I invariably snap it off without removing the root.

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