This is my final Jar of the August garden, featuring the weeds- an inevitable feature this time of year. It has rained just shy of 11 inches in my garden since the first of August. The weeds are thriving and having a joyous outbreak of reproduction. ACK.
Recently, the mailman (a native of the Florida Keys) informed me that his mother would have pulled out all of the Beach Sunflowers in my front yard, pronouncing them weeds. He thinks I am a gardening radical. These are the yellow daisies in the vase. I cultivate them in masses in my garden, they grow with or without irrigation in plain sugar sand and form a mat that reduces the less desirable weed population. I trim them with electric hedge clippers to maintain a low mass. 
I suppose beauty is in the eye of the weed holder. Beach Sunflowers surround a Blanchetiana Bromeliad.
A closer view of my weeds: the white daisies are Bidens alba, a native Bidens prolific (producing an average of 1200 seeds per plant) to the point of making it difficult to like the flowers as well as the bees do. The pinkish-white, small, lily shaped flowers are from Florida Snow (Richardia grandiflora) – a Brazilian native that reportedly blew in with the hurricanes from the early 2000s. A low growing perennial weed that infests lawn creeping through the blades of grass then flowering until it looks like snow on the lawn. I have pulled a zillion of these, they also reseed and will grow from cuttings (lawn mower cuttings)
Tropical plants also get loose in Florida gardens, purple foliage is from Oyster Plants or Moses in a Cradle (Transcandentia spathacea). I happen to like this plant, but it reseeds with vigor and is considered invasive. Purple striped foliage is another Transcandentia I like, T. zebrina also appears unbidden in shady areas. Ferns are Asian Sword Ferns, spread by birds and tending to take over our native Boston Fern. The red tipped leafy foliage is from Surinam Cherries (Eugenia uniflora) also called Pitanga. Pitanga is a small red cherry-like fruit with an (in my opinion) not so tasty tang of turpentine spread everywhere by grateful wildlife. The wispy flowers at the top are from a plant I am not recalling the name of, have a carrot like taproot and produce hitchhiker seeds that stick to my pant legs and greyhound noses. These have different colored flowers and can be pretty – but, are always asked to leave the garden if the soil is moist enough to pull the taproot out.
Here are the three jars of August – appearing in the same repurposed pasta jar – The first, flowers:
The second, tropical flowers:
And this week, the weeds.
You may notice the weeds appear in more than one jar.
Maybe I am a gardening radical.
The Shrub Queen 
All your “weeds” look great. My Dad liked to say that all our plants were a weed somewhere once. Moses is one of my most treasured plants, as it was passed down to me by my grandparents. Up north it is a houseplant, but it does love the climate here.
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True about weeds – one man’ s trash is another’s treasure. Did not know about Oyster Plants as house plants?!
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It is a long story that I will do a blog on someday, but supposedly, a missionary from Burma gave one to a friend of my grandparents and that is how they got theirs. The plant (probably its offspring) has been with me for 45 years. It is well traveled.
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How interesting. Yes I think we’ll need a post
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11″ of rain this month!!!!! If only you could shoo some of it north and west! I do love me some ‘weeds’!!!
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Probably over 11 as it rained overnight.. I would gladly shoo some your way..love me some weeds as well.
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These are weeds? I wouldn’t mind a few weeds like this in my garden. I’ll swap you for my ground elder. Fabulous tropical flowers.
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You might regret importing my weeds-though a good frost would probably take care of all of them. Thanks, the tropicals are my favorite.
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It’s good to be a garden radical! You’re ‘enlightening’ your neighborhood. 😉
I let quite a few ‘pretty’ weeds into my gardens. Most are easy to pull should they take over. Some play nicely with others, others, not so much and aren’t welcome.
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That’ s me, the left wing gardener! I started a shell driveway trend as well. Same here with the weeds. Hardy is hard to beat sometimes!
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Your title sounds so glib and might suggest something completely different but what a stylish vase that first one is – the varied foliage works so well with the beach sunflowers. The tropical send vase is pretty too, but that first one is easily my favourite
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Thanks, I think I like the tropical one the best. Some of the weeds are dreadful bothers.
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Yes, I can see how native plants could easily get the upper hand in your climate, given half the chance
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Lovely, Amelia! I like that Florida Snow but am hoping NC is a safe distance away.
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Thank you, I would avoid Florida Snow if possible.
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Another great entry into the “jar series,” Amelia. Although the second one remains my favorite, I like the color mix in this one too and was immediately attracted to the Eugenia. Many of the best gardeners I know are “radicals” so pooh to the postman’s mother.
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The second is my favorite as well, thanks. Embracing my radicalness.
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Interesting to see what weeds grow in your garden Amelia. And what an attractive bunch they are! The sunflowers are great, and if they suppress other weeds, what is not to love about them?! 😉
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Surinam cherry is a type of Eugenia? Syzigium used to be known as Eugenia. I sort of thought that Surinam cherry was a type of Syzigium, and related to a common hedge here.
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Oh, of course, they are related.
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