Literally thousands showed up in my garden this year for the first time ever. Almost completely covered my 8x20 foot garden. Any ideas?

In the genus Galium. Not sure which species it is. Commonly called bedstraw or cleavers. It sticks to you like velcro.

EDIT: on second look probably not Galium. Sorry.

Not bedstraw, but whatever it is, we have a lot of it too.

We call it rabbit tobacco around here.

I have pictures of American lady butterflies laying eggs on it...

Butterfly host plants seem worth keeping.



Incidentally, cudweed... Gnaphalium is very easy to remove.... one of the less problematic.

Gnaphalium uliginosum is my guess as to the specific variety...

https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/pl...

Thank you for the identification and information about butterflies!