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Common weeds

Identify common weeds

Knowing about a weed’s habit, biology, persistence & spread will help you to keep on top of it. Here is detailed information on more than 100 individual weeds, from dandelion to creeping buttercup, bindweed and ground elder.

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Type
    • Weed datasheets

    Red dead-nettle

    A native winter to summer annual weed common on cultivated land and waste places throughout the UK. It occurs on all soils but prefers loose, nutrient-rich, loamy or sandy soils.

    • Weed datasheets

    Prickly sow-thistle

    Prickly sow-thistle is a troublesome annual or overwintering weed common on arable land. It is also found in gardens, on roadsides, waste places and other disturbed habitats.

    • Weed datasheets

    Prickly lettuce

    Prickly lettuce is an annual, rarely biennial weed probably native in waste places, rough ground, disturbed areas and on walls. It also occurs in cultivated fields and along roadsides. It is frequent in England especially in East Anglia and the south east.

    • Weed datasheets

    Pineappleweed

    Pineappleweed is now common throughout the UK, and is still increasing, especially on tracks and paths and on cultivated land. It prefers an open loamy or sandy loam soil.

    • Weed datasheets

    Petty spurge

    Petty spurge is a small, branched annual plentiful in gardens and arable fields. It is native and common throughout Britain. It appears indifferent to soil type and is recorded up to 1,500 ft.

    • Weed datasheets

    Parsley piert

    Parsley piert is a small native annual sometimes plentiful in cornfields on dry, loamy, calcareous soils. It occurs mainly as a winter annual.

    • Weed datasheets

    Pale persicaria

    Pale persicaria is a native annual found throughout the UK in waste places and cultivated ground especially on damp soils. It also occurs in ditches, manure heaps, on river gravels and by ponds.

    • Weed datasheets

    Oxford ragwort

    Oxford ragwort is an introduced annual to short-lived perennial weed of waste ground, walls and waysides.

    • Weed datasheets

    Nipplewort

    Nipplewort is an upright annual, native in open woods, hedgerows, waste places and rough ground. It is common throughout the UK and appears to grow best on loam and clay soils.

    • Weed datasheets

    Long-headed poppy

    Long-headed poppy is an annual or overwintering weed of arable land especially cornfields and of waste places and roadsides. It has a similar distribution to the common poppy but extends further north and is more frequent in Wales.