looks kinda like a zinnia. or maybe a sunflower??

Maybe Centranthus ruber, Jupiter's Beard?

Elaine

Saponaria officinalis, I'd say.

ditto......Saponaria officinalis

man you dont fool around when you get a hate on for something... butcher knife and all ... lol ... one of the best dollar store tools for the garden ...

you can put 100% round up or generic in a drip bottle.. and just let it drip down the stem ... and it will die.. and come out much easier.. once the roots shrink a bit ... IF!!! ... its the type of plant that has significant underground roots.. and you dont want to disturb the rest of the bed ...

the key is precise minimal application ...

and if thats out of the question.. all the power to ya...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: this is what i use for said precision ...

Yes I think Saponaria officinalis is correct. Thank you all. Here is a photo from a few years ago showing the pink flowers at the front center of photo. (Maybe most of the green leaves in the center are from another kind of plant).

Thanks Ken, I do want to get rid of it but mostly I chose the title of my question because I wanted something more distinctive than "what is this?"

Pink flower in the foreground is Phlox paniculata.

Yes - the pink flowers in the foreground are Phlox as Saltcedar states. This is not the same as the first plant you asked about.

I was thinking it - the original plant asked about- looked like Silene armeria.

And agree the one in the foreground in second picture is Phlox.

Silene and Saponaria are in the same family so there is some similarity but the terminal buds, stems, leaf shape and veination say Saponaria to me.

Ok, maybe they're not the same plants. I have left a few growing and will try to remember to post pics if they flower. Some of the pics I found online for Saponaria had leaves very similar to what I have in the first photo here.

If you pick a leaf from one of the plants and take it and hold it beside the other you will see the differences in shape, texture and veination. They are easily distinguished once you know them. Same with the flowers - quite different if you compare closely.

i was commenting on the butcher knife ... one of my favorite dollar store garden tools.. BEFORE kids came along ...

there is something about not only weeding.. but killing a weed ... lol .. divine retribution or some such .. lol ..

ken

I dug so much of it up that only a few little sprigs were left, but I let them grow so I could show you the flowers and here they are. They were small and took a long time to grow and only flowered in early Sept. . Looks like the Saponaria. The phlox also flowered earlier this year. Time to pull up the rest of the Saponaria.

This post was edited by olreader on Sun, Sep 28, 14 at 20:18

Yes, it's Saponaria...one of my all time favorite fragrant flowers.

Oh.. I have a saponaria growing that I assume a bird planted for me. I like it.