I have been finding this plant all around my garden recently. I know I didn’t plant it, and yet it looks like some of my other plants. This low growing plant is here and there in my “outside the fence” garden. So it must be a weed, and yet it has an unusual almost burgandy foliage.

I’m sure that I purchased something similar with variegated purple and white leaves from the garden centre.

So being a plant hoarder (a term I think I came up with to describe me and others of my ilk – someone who loves to accumulate plants, and even obsesses about the weeds) I took a picture of my weed/plant – and opened it in Google Photos, then used the Google Lens tool in the App, which magically took me to a link for Bugle Weed – or Ajuga, or Carpet Weed. While it is considered somewhat invasive in some of the United States, it is described as a good ground cover. It is a low growing, perennial plant that produces a blue flower, and spreads with runners.

So I decided that if it grows so well in my garden (but in the wrong places – under my Hostas) perhaps it could grow in my project area – a steep sloped area below my fence and above the sidewalk – which is covered in Periwinkle, Trumpet Vine, a few new perennials, and a lot of less pretty weeds – clover, garlic mustard, dandelions and thistles. So I dug up the bugle weed, forgot about it in the full sun for a day……

….. and planted it at the base of my “project” along the sidewalk. I will let you know how they look in a month or so. Free plants are a bonus, when you are trying to plant a large area – at least I hope so.