ID needed on a few leaves, please

[Britt035]

OKay, so my yard is being taken over by something that I was pretty sure was Garlic Mustard but now I'm not so sure. I had noticed similar looking leaves growing up in the woods and picked them and then noticed that none of them are the same and I have no idea what exactly the Garlic Mustard plant leaf may be and what some mysterious plant with three different types of leaves is.

These are all three leaves in question:

The leaves that belong to the plant that is taken over my yard:



Close up:


So the above plant is what I think is the Garlic Mustard plant(?) but it's leaves are fuzzy, not soft but an irritating sort of way with the tiny white hairs all over them.

This large leaf is growing in the woods behind my house:



I thought it was the same thing that is growing in my yard but looking at it now it's more bumpy while the one growing in my yard isn't so much bumpy but rather it looks like it has a bunch of indents in it. The larger leaf above is completely smooth with no small white hairs on it.

& then there is this:





What in the world is this? I picked it thinking it was a smaller version of the "Garlic Mustard" that I think is growing in the woods and when I got it inside I realized it is a really odd little thing. All three leaves look completely different.

Anyways, my goal is to identify what the thing growing in my yard is and to determine if there is any Garlic Mustard plants growing in the woods so I can pull them out since they're invasive and harm the native woodland plants. I just don't want to pull out anything that actually is native. I thought it would be easy to identify a garlic mustard plants when I saw pictures online but obviously, I guess that's just not the case for me. I'm horrible at identifying plants it seems.

[applestar]

As it is, the last one looks to me like wild grape.

But they would be much much easier to ID if we had photos of the entire plants as well as close up of the leaves.

FYI Garlic mustard will smell garlicky if crushed. It grows as a rosette of leaves close to the ground in first year, then a tall stalk 2nd year in early spring, then bloom with white small flowers.

[Britt035]

I'll get a photo of the ones growing up in the woods tomorrow. I think, if anything, those are most likely the Garlic Mustard plant but I would like an ID on them before I start pulling them out.

The ones in my yard... I can take a picture but it's not really a plant (ETA: meant it's not really a single plant, it's obviously a plant lol). These leaves are taking over my yard like grass. They're is a single leaf to a single stem and there in huge patches all over the yard. They smell kind of minty.

The larger leaf from the woods is part of a single plant with other leaves and it smells oniony to me rather then like garlic but maybe that's just me.

[applestar]

Ha! The minty one in the grass might be Creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea). I was thinking that about the smallest looking leaf. Did they have tiny purple flowers in early spring beloved by bumblebees and honeybees when other flowers were scarce?

If so they spread by ground-hugging rooting runners where the stem/leaf are growing from at intervals, and are easy to pull up after rain f you get a good hold on the runner rather than the leaf stem.

[Susan W]

My suggestion is creeping Charlie. You don't say where you are in your profile which leaves a gap. Here in the Midsouth is omni-present. Good news is roots shallow and can be pulled out easily, at least in garden beds. I use a hand cultivator to loosen, then pull out by fistfuls. I trash baggie it. If in the grass lawn a different issue.

[Britt035]

Yeah, that's what it is. I wasn't making a connection between the purple flowers and the heart shaped leaves I'm seeing now. I don't mind the flowers since they're pretty and attract bees but looking at my yard now without all the flowers, it's really becoming a bit much. My yard is really more Creeping Charlie and Clover than it is grass at this point. I haven't noticed it growing in the garden beds though so hopefully I'll be able to keep it that way. I was just reading a couple "horror stories" about how hard it is to keep under control though, so that's worrying.

I'll have to update my profile with that information. Sorry, I wasn't thinking but it probably makes a huge difference in what kind of plants are located in my area. I'm in NJ, zone 6.

[Britt035]

Alright so, I'm pretty sure these are Garlic Mustard plants




There's a lot of them so that should be a fun project to work on for the rest of the summer and fall.

I'm curious if these are Garlic Mustard plants as well:




I was reading the they look different when they're older and blooming and pictures on Google do look somewhat similar but I'm not too sure that's definitely what they are.

Looks like I'm going to have a lot of cleaning up to do in the woods so far.

I'm having issues identifying a couple other plants.

This thing is all over the place in the woods, I'm even finding them popping up in my yard by my garage at this point. If it's not Native to Jersey I'm pulling it out. If it is then I'll just remove the ones in my yard and let the ones in the woods be.





I was able to successfully identify a Virginia Creeper & then there was this thing that looks nothing like the Virginia Creeper I identified.


Compared to the Virginia Creeper I found:


So, that's a big difference in looks there and I'm not sure what other plants have 5 leaves since I can only find info about the Virginia Creeper at this point in my search.

Then there is this:



& finally, this plant:

[rainbowgardener]

When posting a bunch of pictures like that, it really helps to number them for ease in reference.

First picture is garlic mustard. Second (pair of pictures) is not garlic mustard, it is white snakeroot.

The sort of like Virginia creeper, but not, I think is a buckeye tree seedling.

The one with the buds at the top is common groundsel, a common yellow flowering weed.

The next to the bottom one I think is a deadly nightshade and the very bottom one is pokeweed.

Pokeweed I think is a very pretty wildflower. It gets huge and those berries turn a beautiful purple and the birds like them. But it will tend to pop up all over.



https://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecolo ... ytoAm5.jpg

you are welcome!

[Britt035]

Thank you!

You scared me with the deadly nightshade but looking it up it seems to be Black Nightshade which isn't deadly like the Belladonna. I actually found some websites recommending to fry up the leaves like spinach and to eat the berries. I think I'll pass on that for now and leave the berries for the wildlife lol.

[rainbowgardener]

yeah, I should have said it is A nightshade. I'm not very good at telling the different nightshades apart.

[mathis071709]

The first does look like creeping charlie... but my creeping charlie has purple flowers at the top. Nonetheless if it is creeping charlie or anything that spreads like a blanket get a herbicide with DICAMBA in it. It will kill it... but still need to be mowed, weedeat, or pulled afterwards.