and now I'm seeing a lot of this pop up:

==>>>

i would remove most of EVERYTHING that fit the description above ... if for no other reason.. to stop it from seed another million seeds into your future garden ...

ken

Looks like a weed to me. I don't identify all my weeds, but do know most of the weedier natives (looking at you, goldenrod and heartleaf aster). I get the one you pictured and I weed it out.

It's worth noting if it's popping up everywhere, you can keep one or two without worrying that you might love it, because you'll get a ton more next year. I get plenty every year, despite pulling it up every year.

It may be an aster or boltonia, but I am not sure I've matched up the right leaves and flowers. I have something that has some unimpressive flowers. Sometimes, a named cultivar can be beautiful and the wild stuff just not.

Your plant app obviously doesn't know that all figworts have opposite leaves and square stems.

Sometimes it's on the nose! But when it's less than 50% sure then I just consider it a wild guess.

With the change of sunlight this year I expected some unusual growth, but this is one that I can't tell if it's a tree, flower, milk weed, or just something random! LOL

I have a lot of space now, but the guys are still cutting trees so I can't do any real permanent planting. I think I'm going to expand on @Sigrid's suggestion: dig a bunch of them up, replant some in patches in full sun and some in shadier areas (isolated from everything else), and just see what happens. Worst case scenario, there's always Round Up :-P

Looks composite to me, maybe a rudbeckia?

@dbarron, it's entirely possible! I planted several last year maybe 15' away, and I'm not sure how they reseed. If they get cast in the wind, though, then those seeds could have easily landed here.

This resemble a plant I have had land in my garden. I let it grew for a while. It's a wildflower but seldom grown. It's an Asteraceae. The name isn't snakeweed but something like that. It's poisonous and the flowers are very modest. I now zap it.

I looked that up, @UpperBayGardener (zone 7), and turns out that "composite" is another name for it! So you and @dbarron agree, you just didn't know it :-D

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25400

Turns out that there are about 40 bajillion varieties of Asteraceae, though, so it could be gorgeous or it could be poison! Poison scares me in this area, though, so I'm definitely gonna dig it all up and move it to the front yard (where the pets can't get to it).

davidrt28 (zone 7) I wonder if the plant you were thinking of was Ageratina altissima - White snakeroot.

Not saying this is your weed Jason as it has opposite leaves and yours appear alternate.

In that case, I take it back LOL.