Field tips
The line between the two is fuzzier than it looks. These simple habits help you read a yard the way a naturalist would.
A plant standing in a trodden path or a driveway crack is almost always a weed — very few garden flowers can survive being walked on. Anything thriving in undisturbed lawn or a tended bed is more likely a flower you (or a previous owner) planted or a welcome self-seeder.
Dandelions, clover and chickweed are wildflowers by any other measure — pollinators love them, and some are edible. Czech gardeners often leave a strip unmown in spring just so bees can reach them before the first cut.
Cowslips and violets vanish by June, while thistles and bindweed only get going in high summer. If something familiar seems to have disappeared, it may simply be between bloom seasons rather than gone for good.
Shallow-rooted chickweed pulls out in seconds. Dandelions, thistles and bindweed have long taproots or spreading rhizomes and regrow from any piece left behind — dig them out fully instead of just pulling the top.
A patch of clover, thyme or nettles left alone feeds bees, butterflies and their caterpillars. Many "weeds" are simply doing quietly for local wildlife what an ornamental flowerbed cannot.