Edit: The weed lobby is alive and well in the comments! Just kidding. Appreciate the responses.
But my question still sort of stands. Take away the pejorative label “weed”—what allows these plants to perform better than the other ones?
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Generally it is just quite hardy plants with hella low requirements so they can live in many areas..so they will sprout a ton if you have a few ideal days for them in terms of sun and temperature and moisture.
You can just throw out potatoes in a corner or some seedlings of wild flowers… they will grow fast too, it is just we don’t want weeds so we get upset at it.
Tomatoes too, tomato plants grow so absurdly fast it is unreal.
You can do the same with lettuce too, you can just yeet lettuce seeds somewhere chances are it will succeed growing.
Plants generally grow fast as hell. Blackberry bushes, here in germany considered a weed because it is everywhere despite being useful.. constantly reclaims pathways and such in parks.
It’s kinda the other way around. Anything that *can’t* grow quickly in your environment, won’t grow very well on its own.
Anything that *can* grow quickly in your environment will…well…grow quickly. It’ll try to reproduce and spread as much as possible, then when it spreads into a spot where it isn’t wanted we call it a “weed”.
So it’s not “weeds do something differently” – it’s “wild plants that happen to grow well and spread into your yard are then called weeds”.
Weeds are not a real classification. Its just a plant that is growing where a human does not want it.
Since this is biased, a slow growing, picky plant likely won’t pose much of a problem and thus won’t be on average considered a “weed” to most.
Its the ones that make you go out into your garden to fight it, that you interact with the most and thus are more likely to refer to as a weed.
But I promise that if a lily started growing in the middle of your vegetable garden, it would be a “weed” just the same.
Weeds are just plants you didn’t mean to grow. All plants compete for water, light, and nutrients. Stronger plants push everything else out of the way and steal the resources.
Weeds are just plants that annoy you. There’s nothing else different about them compared with “normal” plants. You wouldn’t even think they grow faster than “normal” plants if they didn’t annoy you. Blame your perspective, not the plant.
I currently live on a farm. Based on my own experience, the weeds are here, this is their natural habitat.
The plants I am putting in the ground are not from here (this part of the woods, where my garden is), so of course they have difficulty in the environment, and of course the local weeds that are healthy will affect them.
Also wild plants tend to be stronger, where the ones we specifically cultivate become different because we modify them. Guess who wins when they’re both in a natural scenario.
Adaptation.
Many “weeds” are ruderal, meaning they are the first to grow in an area that has undergone some change or disruption- after a fire for example.
They utilize the environment timing and conditions at optimum levels to grow and to reproduce quickly, before larger or more invasive plants can grow and crowd them out.
Many plants that are considered weeds have adapted to low fertility soils, like dandelions. So when your lawn gets weak and needs more inputs like nutrients and water, dandelions can take advantage of the condition of the soil and quickly grow bloom and spread seed.
A quick spreading weed is described as being invasive, where it competes with other plants for light and water, but can overtake other species, by covering it or taking over root space and weakening the health of the desirable plant.
Besides the other things that have been mentioned:
Some plants are really good at recovering from being cut or torn out, because they can regrow from small chunks of plant tissue that are left behind. This means that if you try to remove them from your garden, they will often just grow right back.
Where I live, we had invasive *Oxalis pes-caprae*, a South African relative of the local redwood sorrel *Oxalis oregana*.¹ One difference between the two is that the invasive “weed” species grows little pea-sized bulbs off of its roots. If you tear the plant out, you’ll usually leave these bulbs behind, and it will just regrow from them. Also, it can spread from place to place if you move soil that contains the bulbs.
Similarly, bamboo and many other grasses can regrow from their *rhizomes,* underground tissues that can send up new shoots. Getting rid of unwanted bamboo plants can be really hard. And since they’re so tough, some bamboos can tunnel under sidewalks and grow up through cracks, tearing the sidewalk up.
Why do plants come up with adaptations like that? It’s not actually to frustrate gardeners! It’s to survive grazing animals, wildfires, or other things that destroy most of the plant.
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¹ For West Coast gardening nerds: You can tell the difference between native *O. oregana* and invasive *O. pes-caprae* by the color of the flowers; *oregana* is white with a hint of pink, whereas *pes-caprae* is vivid yellow. The native one doesn’t do bulbs, but it has its own tricks; when its seeds become ripe, the seed-pods pop and shoot them out! The native one does *not* want full sun; it prospers in the shade of redwoods. Both of them are edible!
Plants that one cultivates have been bred (selected) for other desirable traits, such as how beautiful they are to humans or for how delicious of fruit they produce.
Weeds have been naturally selected for the environment in which they live. Those that fail because it is too hot or cold, too wet or dry, too nutrient poor of soil, can’t attract pollinators, etc. die and don’t pass on their genes and also leave room for the better survivors.
Also, a lot of traits that humans like in plants are not great for the plant’s health. Big or sweet fruits take a lot of water and energy to make. Unusual and decorative flowers are sometimes harder to recognize or access by the local pollinators and require human assistance, etc.
Weeds are growing exactly where they want to grow. Where they are the species best suited to that location. The amount of sunlight, rain, soil acidity etc, it’s perfect for them; otherwise some other type of weed would be growing there.
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