FOUND IT - but not good news

Anyone who has read this blog much knows that I've been on a quest to identify all the many plants in my yard ever since moving to Boise. I've been blessed with a place that is just full of all sorts of lovely specimen plants that were brought in by a previous owner. I also have been given starts of many new things from various garden pals I've come to know here. It has become something of an obsession for me.

I've got MOST of the things growing in my yard figured out now and have assembled quite an impressive list.
Here are the plants in my FRONT YARD
and here are the plants in my BACK YARD

Cool, eh?

There was one in particular, however, that has really had me stumped.

It grew in abundance along the fence on the west side of my back yard. It had TALL hollow stalks (many over 6 ft), very shallow roots, and white flowers on top. The plant looked like this:

I have gone through MANY different garden books looking for this. I took plant samples to knowledgeable people at a couple different nurseries. I had both serious private gardeners and professional landscapers come to my house to look at them. NO ONE seemed able to identify what the heck this thing was.

I FINALLY found out the name of my mystery plant. It's called "Policeman's Helmet" also known as Himalayan Balsam.

Great! Right? Well...er, not so much.

Guess where I finally found it?

In my book of Idaho Noxious Weeds.

Yeah, unfortunately, even though this has been sold as an ornamental in some places, here is is considered nasty.

So out it had to come:

I made sure my neighbor who had some growing on her side of the fence pulled hers all up too.

I was pretty bummed about it at first, but I finally decided I didn't really mind. Now I simply have more room for collecting different colors of hollyhocks

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