What is a weed?

Glad to help your GD keep her illusions Agus. I like it too
I seem to remember being told that it (RW) thrives on land where there has been a fire. Don't know if that is true.

I know that gardeners don`t think so, but I think that a lawn looks it`s prettiest when dotted with daisies, and if all the daisies are killed off, how are little girls going to make their daisy chains?

I've heard that too dustyangel it thrived on bomb site after the war.

One of its names is fireweed. It is very pretty, but very persistent, and the fluffy seeds fly everywhere and spread it.

Some plants are definitely not good to have around. Here, ragwort is a legally controlled weed as, if cattle eat it, it kills them and dairy farming is a massive part of the economy. It also grows fast like...a weed.

My garden. which was hugely overgrown when we moved in, is riddled with ivy which chokes everything else to death and what I think Americans call nutweed (I'm not sure of the UK nomenclature) which also grows voraciously. I have been waging a major battle against both for the past year and I think I may be winning.

There is no such thing botanically as a weed. Lots of plants grow quickly and freely, especially annuals.

A weed is simply a plant that's growing where you don't want it to grow. We humans, tend not to encourage plants with small insignificant flowers, those that spread profusely or are toxic.

My old next door neighbour considers foxgloves as weeds. I cultivate them.

Some over zealous plants like Japanese Knotweed or Indian Balsam and some toxic ones, such as Ragwort as mentioned by Absent are called 'notifiable weeds*.

So Ana's poem is spot on.

Chamerion angustifolium is the plant commonly known as fireweed (mainly in North America), great willow-herb (some parts of Canada),[1] or rosebay willowherb (mainly in Britain), is a perennial herbaceous plant which flourished on bombsites, areas that have been burned or with a high potash content.

I don't like bindweed (I don't know if that's the correct name). Even though the white flowers are pretty, it chokes everything else and is very difficult to get rid of.

Bindweed can be a menace in the garden. I'm sure the underground shoots grow unseen in the winter, and it can get everywhere. It's Latin name is Calystegia sepium.