This year was the first year I'd planted annuals. We bought some flats of standard impatiens from a local nursery and used them to replace some azaleas that refused to thrive under the shade of my front yard Oak tree. Early summer, a strange plant appeared in the middle of the bed. I didn't know what it was, but it clearly wasn't your typical Cincinnati weed. I decided to let it grow, and grow it did.



In July/August it put up yellow flowers. I considered trying to ID it at that point, but never got around to it. This weekend we were passing by the garden of a community center and my wife recognized their plants were similar to what we were growing. When we got home, we checked the front flower bed and sure enough:



Pumpkins! Last year we took our daughter to a fall pumpkin fest and bought one of these small, all-white pumpkins. We left them on the front porch for halloween and thanksgiving, until they were stolen by squirrels!

It's by far the most random thing I've had spontaneously grow in the yard. The bed received bi-weekly liquid miracle grow and overspray from the lawn's "vitamin M".

Ha! Good one!

Usually I just get flowers in colors I never bought...

There is a very easy way to tell a valuable plant from a weed.

You pull on it. If it rips out of the ground easily, it was a valuable plant.

Ha! I could have performed the yank test... but what of the poor pumpkins?!?!

I was hoping to find a new shade-loving annual to try out next year. On one hand I'm not sure that I'm ready to plant a pumpkin patch, on the other hand they could turn into my next obsession. Not that anyone around here knows anything about that.

andy10917 wrote:There is a very easy way to tell a valuable plant from a weed.

You pull on it. If it rips out of the ground easily, it was a valuable plant.