Scotch Thistle Info

Last summer I was at someone's house and she had this enormous thistle. It was at least 6 feet tall. She gave me seed. I was successful in germinating 2. They are just sitting there doing nothing so I called her. They are biennials and will take off next year.

Now my question. Is this an invasive plant and should I be growing it? I don't want to create problems for farmers. I planted it for the birds to enjoy the harvest and the architectural look but now I'm worried. I'm not positive it is Scotch Thistle. Can't post a picture but it has furry leaves that are almost as light as lambs ear. Does anyone know?

There used to be a $5 fine for every thistle that was found on your farm in Chautauqua County, and that was back when $5 was more than a week's wages. Yes, they are very invasive and they will take off from your yard in all directions. We are fighting a losing battle here, as the neighbors don't cut them down and the seeds blow in our direction. Stan would have loved being the thistle inspector, he treats it like a life's mission to rid this little bit of the world of them. Having said that, I have to admit that I am rather fond of those lovely purple flowers!

Thanks, Kathleen. I'm going back to this lady and let her know. She is a real proponent of Backyard Wildlife Habitats through the NWF. She also lives in the inner city which maybe isn't a problem. I'm 7 miles out and not that far from farm land. Thanks, I knew someone at DG would know.

Hi there trill. Did you get the info you wanted?
This is the Scotch Thistle. http://plantsdatabase.com/go/819/
The leaves are silvery grey, but not 'furry'

I love it and it seeds around in my garden, but I understand it can be invasive. It's a biennial.

A Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (the size of a sparrow) was drilling into the stems of mine and hooking out little grubs :)

Phil, I'll try and post a picture tomorrow. This one is also a bienniel. It didn't do much this year. Leaves were about a foot long. The leaves are silvery grey with fur. I'm going to let it go and just watch it next year so it doesn't go to seed. We have small woodpeckers here that we call Downy Woodpeckers. I hope they will like it.

Your woodpeckers sound interesting - I looked them up on Google, they're really cute :) http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&q=Downy+woodpecker

...and quite similar to the Lesser Spotted http://images.google.com/images?q=Lesser+spotted+woodpecker&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=0&sa=N
It seems that they are about the same size too

Good luck with the thistle

Here's a photo. Definitely has furry white covering, especially on new leaves.

We have another woodpecker that is called a Hairy Woodpecker. Looks just like the Downy only he is bigger, about the size of a robin and his beak is bigger relative to his head than a Downy. Very hard to tell apart when first starting to birdwatch. But if they land together, which they often do on my suet feeders, easy to see the difference. Your lesser spotted WP has more red on his head. I wonder if you have a greater spotted WP?

We do have a Great Spotted :) They are a little larger than a starling http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&q=Great+Spotted+Woodpecker

Yes, your plant looks like Scotch Thistle. I was thinking furry like a verbascum, forgetting the lovely silvery down the thistle has.