So today is international plant appreciation day, so I’m taking time to appreciation some plants that most people get rid of in their yards—the misfits, the unloved, the weeds or more appropriately the wildflowers.

Some people consider wildflowers to be weeds because they pop up wherever they want—not necessarily where humans would like them to be, and not all of them actually produce pretty flowers—some do, but others do not. They also can spread throughout a yard as well, at times out competing the grass for nutrients and that is one reason why people don’t like them.

So one of the plants that we allow to grow within the backyard is Creeping Charlie, though we do try to stay on top of it and pull about half out every other week, so we have ground cover, but it isn’t totally taking over the yard.

Creeping Charlie has several other names that it goes by including ground ivy, gill-over-the-ground, alehoof, tunhoot, catsfoot, field balm, and run-away-robin. It is a member of the mint family, and is a perennial (meaning it will come back year after year) evergreen creeper.

The flowers of Creeping Charlie can range from blue to bluish-violet to lavender and usually flowers in the spring. While the plant can be considered an weed, there numerous insects that feed off of the plant including several different species of bees—so to help the bee population—don’t get rid of the Creeping Charlie in your yard.

The other photo is of pretty white flower of another yard “weed”. This one has been a little harder to identify because if you google “weeds with white flowers in Oklahoma” you get pictures of weeds with flowers—but only about ten to fifteen percent of the flowers are white, and then none of them look to be the same shape as the one in my picture.

So this one will remain unnamed for now until I can figure it out.

So in terms of plant appreciation day—if it weren’t for plants there wouldn’t be life on the planet. They are the ones that fix carbon dioxide and release the oxygen that we breathe—so it is important to make sure that there are plants (especially trees) around to do this—or no life. They’re also important part of our diets, and we use them to provide shade, help reduce noise, provide privacy, use in erosion control, modify temperatures, and help reduce wind damage.

So remember even when life gets crazy to stop and enjoy the beauty of the plants around us—because if they disappear—we won’t be far behind.