Are you aware of having planted them? If not it is likely to be a weed (plant in wrong place) you could just wait 'til it flowers to see what it is - I don't recognise.

I don't either but I would wait just in case

have you got a bird feeder nearby if so it maybe from that good luck.

I would dig up an area of these plants to see if it is spreading by sending out in ground runners. If it's doing that, then whatever it is you may not want that type of hard to confine and control plant in your garden.

they remind me of verbena and or Kalamaris [sounds a bit squidy ] but it has a flower like an aster in late summer onwards.

have you noticed them here before? They also remind me a bit of a wild plant called mugwort [cant remember its botanical name].

Not mugwort as there are sections of midrib between the leaflets - but just in case rub a leaf and see if it smells stongly.

Could they be poppies?

No leaves aren't right for a poppy and they die back in winter.

I'd thought about poppies too. Moon grower, mine haven't died back; they're actually looking pretty much like the photo here.

My poppies also haven't died back but my leaves are hairy and these aren't.

Made me think of wilted chrysanthemums in buckets on petrol station forecourts.

I know what you mean Urbanite. I agree with Moon grower on this, leave it to flower to see what it is.

were there no signs of them last year?

It looks very like a daisy plant that I have in my garden, sorry I don't know the name as it came from a friend, if it is the same one be warned its a nightmare and spreads rapidly and one I regret planting...

I have them growing in my garden & I think it is a wild Michaelmas Daisy. Has sprays of tiny whitish Daisy flowers. I leave one or two if in a an appropriate spot & weed the rest out.

Please do let us know when they flower - even if you only leave one from curiosity. You can add it to this blog wo we all remember what the question was!

Though the leaf pattern in the photos appears different from that of the wild Michaelmas Daisy which can also propagate via underground runners, if you go to my photo section you will see a large bunch of them in my garden in photo HN1 0013. The edges of the leaves of the daisy in my garden are smooth and the leaf spearlike. The leaf pattern in the photo appears closer to the base leaves of the Chinese aster though that's just a guess and no answer.

I have left two & will photograph when in flower & add to this question.