Noxious Weeds? Pollen? My Yard?

Our yard is naturally xeric, or in other words, mostly native, dry-loving plants. Anyway, that is what I have thought. I've been taking the wait-and-see-what-it-is-going-to-be approach with most of the plants. With the exception of some I remember from growing up in Northwestern New Mexico, such as tumbleweeds (or Russian Thistle), I don't pull up everything. I know better now -- I went on a "Weed Walk", sponsored by the local Horticultural Art Society, on a recent Saturday. My eyes have been opened and my face is red.

Since then, I have been pulling weeds! The top picture is awaiting exact ID, saved for a while (the Horticultural Art Society ladies think it is a native coreopsis). The weed above is not yet named, but is being pulled. It has bad seed pods.



This was a nice, big, green plant, with buds that looked promising, but were being slow opening. I don't have many nice green plants in my yard so I was waiting to see what it would do. And there were lots more like it (not so big and bushy ) on the back slope. Some of you might already be smirking at this picture- I certainly feel pretty silly. Especially since I had family visiting and taking allergy pills everyday. This is a very healthy speciman of RAGWEED! And it is actually blooming -it just takes a magnifying glass to see the blossoms- and putting out huge amounts of pollen.

This is Pigweed (unknown name origin), also pollen producing.
On the walk in Monument Valley Park (downtown CS) there were some pigweed plants 8 ft tall. Mine are less than 5 inches -says something about how fertile my soil is, huh!

The yellow flower is Goldweed, or Cow Pen Weed. This does NOT make you sneeze. In fact, I learned that the plants with flowers you can see depend on bees, etc for pollenation and do not have pollen that people are allergic to, rather it is the plants with insignificant flowers that give us allergies. The plant next to the Goldweed is one of those -Kochia (and also on Colorado's noxious weed list).

This one looks pretty good, right? It is actually in my neighbor's yard, but I was considering saving some of it's seed. This is Bouncing Bet - one of the most wanted on Colorado's Noxious weed list(B list, which means they have hopes to eradicate it)

If it has a flower, I am open to it being a desirable native, but this one, also in my neighbor's yard, is Dalmation Toadflax -and also on the noxious weed list.

Another shot of Kochia (I have LOTS). No blossoms to be seen, but lots of pollen.

This is a native grass -one of the Grama grasses - it is commonly called eyebrow grass, and if you pick two of the seed heads and hold them up to your face, you can have cool eyebrows. Behind is a cat mint -they do well in my poor soil (it is being improved one hole at a time).

This is the back slope -with a bobcat sitting there is the midst of Canadian Thistle, Bull Thistle and lots more ragweed as well as some goldweed and native sunflowers. All of the thistles are also on the noxious list. Since then, the thistles, which had already mostly gone to seed and scattered that seed all over my yard, had the heads cut off and the ragweed has been pulled. The bobcat didn't seem fazed by pollen, and I know that I am not allergic to ragweed, since it put out little puffs of pollen every time I pulled up a plant. And I have now pulled hundreds. And I'm very sorry for my visitors that were clearly allergic to something in my yard!

I'm afraid that I will be dealing with thistles FOREVER. Hydra-like, when you pull one, two will grow in it's place.
I had to give you a shot of the face/head. Doesn't it look just like a house cat? He/she didn't seem to mind that I was out there taking pictures of him/her.