Allotments 4 All

I have little lambs ears but this seeded itself in the pathway and has huge ear!
Just wondering what it is. A weed?

look like Verbascum= Mullein..there is few different species, but without flowers is difficult to say which it is.
I suspect that next summer you will have tall silvery spike coming out of that rosette with lots of small yellow flowers on it..and then millions of seeds.. ;D..just what you want ;)..no..not a weed...

I agree a verbascum... probably the "wild" one... it's a weed if you don't want it...  :-X

thank you, both. I thought verbascum had a leathery leaf so now I've learned something new.
After looking it up just now it appears there are more than 100 or so varieties. I may just have
to let it grow another year to satisfy my curiosity as to what dropped here.

It is interesting how many things love to germinate in a gravel path!

Thank you again :D You are great.

Annie..I was thinking this sort of Verbascum..not the 'garden' varieties..but wild sort..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbascum_thapsus
If you look the page it list hybrids..
I like these..I've got some in my hedge bottom..and I always leave some to self-seed...just for fun

If you are lucky you'll get some lovely catepillars on it........ ;D

Now THAT I don't need. Have enough caterpillars and maybe enough potential weeds.
Maybe the compost pile wins the verbascum afterall.

Moth ones, can be really spectactular and won't attach your crops!

Ahh...but think of it this way..if the caterpillars feed on your verbascum..they'll feed less with other things.. ;)..not that I've noticed any on my vebascum.. ::)

 ;D snap  ;D

We have a pest that we call a verbascum moth, it ain't the right name for it but the mallyshags will strip a plant in days. So don't encourage them as they don't seem to know the difference between your prize plants and the wild ones.

I lost a whole batch of show plants that were badly needed for a garden show one year. Cost us a few quid to replace them.

I grew the giant verbascums on the plot last year just to attract the verbascum moths, and I wasn't disappointed.  They're very colourful.