Mystery volunteer.

Last weekend we spent all afternoon in the yard, weeding flower beds, trimming shrubs, and WEEDING the poor excuse of a lawn that we are left with after last year’s drought.  Monte and I have divvied up the one bed along the fenceline that gets good sun all day.   Monte plants basil, tomatoes, thyme, chives and zinnias in his half.   In my half I plant flowers, many of which are perennials which come back every year.  I fill in with other flowers each spring.

Sometimes I get “volunteers” that grow from seeds that make their way to my flower bed one way or the other.   Two years ago, I had planted a really pretty red geranium in this same bed, but it kicked the bucket after the first year during the very cold winter we had in early 2011.  As I was weeding last weekend, I saw this little guy.  It’s actually not too little, it’s probably about 9 inches high.  I think (hope) it is a volunteer geranium.   I’m not sure though, could be a melon or veggie seedling.   Last time I had a mystery volunteer, I nurtured it until it had grown into a good size shrub.  Only to eventually find out that it was a poisonous weed called nightshade, which I quickly disposed of.

Between rain showers today, i went outside and snapped this picture, so that I could look at it as I compared it to geranium seedling images on the web, and this *could* be one.  It has the fuzzy stalks and leaves that geraniums do, too.   It has the big oval nurse leaves.  I even tore a little bit of the leaf on the left off to smell it, to see if it had that pungent smell that geraniums do.   But I couldn’t smell anything.   Maybe it’s too little?  Or maybe it’s not a geranium.

What do you think?

I’ll let you know when I find out, either way.  🙂