What is the difference between a plant and a weed?

Question

How do those chemical weed killers know which plant to kill? And is it possible to train a cairns terrier to dig up the weeds next time she decides to dig up the flower bed? (I know thats a long shot). regards...frustrated gardener.

Answer 1

Ugh, Ignorance by other people...

Listen up:

A weed is a plant without any botanical value, no medical use, no industrial use, no use whatesoever. They just grow and bother other vegetation.

Weed killers are absorbed by the roots and leaf stomata, and distrupt the cell walls in chlorophyll production, making it impossible for the plant to photosynthesize and grow, you are basically starving the plant by breaking its cells, the equivalent of ripping a human stomach or breaking the jaw...it inevitably dies one way or another from a lack of food.

You don't have to know how a body works in order to kill it, you just have to add the right conflict. They don't "know" which plant to kill any more than a virus "knows" which animals to attack.

Answer 2

A gardening dog would be just great..!!

....instead of barking at the gate

it could be digging..cutting hedges

mowing grass and trimming edges

in its mouth could hold the hose

....squirting water on the rose

but .....weeding.....well .....its too ambitious

...decisions must be expeditious..!

.. knowing weed from flowering plant

...we can do it..............

..a dog... just.... can t..!!

Answer 3

A weed, is something that grows anywhere that it's seed blows., a plant is something that is planted, cultivated, watered, something that is valued for some.

Answer 4

A weed is any plant growing where you don't want it to.ie a tomato plant in a flower bed is a weed.So even if you could train a dog to dig up a specific plant it doesn't mean it would be digging up a weed.Weed killers (2-4,D type) kill depending on leaf width(ie broad leaf herbicide) while glycophosphate is non specific(everything(except bamboo which nothing kills))

Answer 5

Weeds are soft plants, Chemical weed killer actually kills all soft plants.  If we use chemicals near soft plants ( useful / weeds )  everything gets killed. So che weed killers should be used only around hardy plants and shrubs....

Answer 6

Weeds grow faster and are more prolific. LOL!

Answer 7

A weed is any plant growing in the wrong place.

Answer 8

As all gardeners know, a weed is just a plant growing in the wrong place!

Most weeds are really 'wild' flowers that are very successful at germinating under adverse conditions.

The answer is only to spray the plants you don't want!

Answer 9

All of the above answers are uneducated. (except Neel - but i wouldn't trust spray next to shrubs. It will burn leaves)

All weeds are plants. A weed, by definition, is a plant which seeds multiple times per year.

A plant (in this context) will seed once, if at all.

Weedkillers don't care what they are killing, but some plants can't fight it off, some can (generally woody plants).

And forget the dog - buy a gardener!

Answer 10

A weed has no technical definition. It is basically a plant that you do not want somewhere and it's there or a plant that is not pleasing to the eye that you wish to be gone. Chemical weed killers kill whatever plant you spray them on, whether you want the plant to live or die. I do not think you can train carin terriers to dig up certain plants.

Answer 11

plant can be a leafy and having less danger to the mans health and other organisms.

weed causes harmto the other organism or the human

Answer 12

There is no difference, they are both plants, but the ones we dislike are called Weeds.