TOPIC: best list of companion plants

That is the same weed! I looked it up online after I posted and it is called Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica) but everyone I know calls them Fire Nettles. I have found quite a bit of seng growing under and amongst them. Just before Bow Season in October of 1990 (I believe), I found a thick patch of Fire Nettles growing on the end of a large finger ridge in West Virginia. The plants were as tall as me (6 foot, 1 1/2 inches) and had 3 and 4 prongs growing under and amongst them that were knee to waist high. There were so many flat tops and 2 prongs that you couldn't count them much less get to them, even if you wanted to due to the Fire Nettles. I had to use a big stick to knock the Fire Nettles over just to get through them. Twenty two (22) years has passed and I have not been back there since. I would bet that there are again some really nice 3 and 4 pronged plants grown up there now, so maybe next year I will take a trip up there to see! Besides, I have some old friends there that I have not seen in many years!


Frank

I think for the first time seng hunters just look for a good stand of poplar and maple trees and most of the companion plants will be there. If it's pretty much all oak and hickery just trek on through.

rootman

The two best indicators I see here in northwest Arkansas are maidenhair fern and doll's eyes/baneberry. The very best spots have the others as well, but if I see the two, then I almost always find ginseng there.

Areas I've found it best had lots of rocks/boulders laying with moss covering them. Lots of maple and beech trees. Baneberry and Indian Turnip. And some light coverage of grapevines. A few areas I found that had too many grapevines, and all the undergrowth on the ground was dead. It looked like a fire had swept through.