How can you tell a weed from a flower foliage?

Your best bet is to wait and see if any flowers form until you learn the difference.

My neighbor used to do that all the time too. Her hubby was the flower guy of the house and she had no clue about the flowers. He would get so mad at her for pulling bulbs out. Just wait until they come up far enough so that you can tell if it's a typical weed or not.

Wait for them to come up, then try to identify. I always put some type of marker with it's name where the plant is.

I had this same problem, so i got a flower garden book at the half price book store in our area, really cheap, and familiarized myself with the leaves of the various plants i had planted..... Also, i keep the little identification picks that they stick into the pots that plants come in.... they also have a picture of the foliage of the plant.... You could keep them in a recipe box or some cute container to look back on next year when young plants start coming up :-)

One way that I distinguish weeds from flowers is to check out whether those leaves are found in my lawn. I have plenty of weeds in my sorry excuse for a lawn. But I am surprised that the gardener in the family would let a nongardener weed. I have pointed out specific weeds that need to be removed to my husband, but unless I'm there, I don't trust him. Sometimes I pull a weed and he takes it with him and checks that it matches what I pulled. I am always battling garlic mustard and I could trust my guys to pull that.

You can google weeds in WI. I'm in SE WI. Check the preen website. There are images available on some other sites. Pay particular attention to the invasive species. Garlic mustard took over my woods when I was pregnant and had a little one. With a lot of work over a couple years, it is only in isolated places. Some weeds are pretty difficult to dig out, like thistle and require weed killer. Good luck.

Google to identify