Why did we get such a downer on weeds?<\/p><\/blockquote>
Where gardens are being gardened \u2013 well, that\u2019s a different matter, and it remains to be seen how far we\u2019re prepared to embrace a looser look, coupled with a more sustainable and wildlife<\/a>-friendly approach to the land over which we hold stewardship. The question remains: when and why did we get such a downer on weeds, and how did that come about? How did it arise for me, and for you?<\/p>
\u00a9 Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure> I don\u2019t remember being sat down and lectured upon weed identification, but I\u2019m fairly sure by the age of five most of us are able to point out the apparently undesirable frequenters of our flowerbeds. We know them by their blooms (often yellow \u2013 is this why so many of us steer clear of that colour in the garden?), their seedheads<\/a>, their twining tendrils and their cheerful ubiquity. We know them by their ability to survive just about anywhere and, for some reason, we\u2019ve been taught to despise them for just this distinction, rooting them out or poisoning them at every opportunity.<\/p>
We pass on the impulse to control from one generation to another<\/p><\/blockquote>
Without taking proper time to interrogate it, we pass on the impulse to control from one generation to another; a desire to manage nature and put her back in her box that sees its outworking in the way we unconsciously approach our gardens. We play out a perpetual balancing act between those energies that seek to make a mark upon the land and those that celebrate the fecund potential of the natural world to grow, and to keep on growing, against apparently insurmountable odds. We\u2019ll suffer this latter power to the point at which it gives us fresh, young growth and bright, bold flowers, but the old, the leggy, the generally-past-its-best, will be removed in short measure.<\/p>
It seems we have little love for a plant once the biological function of producing the next generation has been performed<\/p><\/blockquote>
And maybe there\u2019s nothing wrong in that \u2013 gardens are where we get to play at being in charge. But do you ever get the feeling we\u2019re making a lot of unnecessary work for ourselves? We spend time, money and energy pulling out those plants perfectly adapted to grow well in our soil, to replace them with expensive introductions that need coddling if they\u2019re not to expire a fortnight after planting. We eschew the bindweed, linaria and wood avens our gardens want to grow while embracing the weeds of other soils \u2013 echinacea, melianthus, amelanchier \u2013 with rapture.<\/p>
\u00a9 Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure> Yet there\u2019s something amiss in our thinking. In Weeds, the Story of Outlaw Plants<\/em>, Richard Mabey points out that we have become confused in our appropriation of the adjective \u2018weedy\u2019 as a description for the thin, straggly and unwell. What we\u2019re really often looking at when we see a weed is a a plant that\u2019s good at going to seed<\/a>, often several times a season, with all the bodily implications that pregnancy and birth will have on an organism\u2019s resources. Wildflowers<\/a> are fantastically well adapted to multiplication, but it seems we have little love for a plant once the biological function of producing the next generation has been performed. Over the next few months, we\u2019ll spend hours in our gardens busily snipping off any flower past its prime, frantically deadheading<\/a> to prolong the display and prevent our plants from having to suffer the indignities of maturity. But the weeds, where they grow, will go about their business unmolested.<\/p>
It\u2019s human activity that provides the precise concoction of nutrients and disturbed soil that these plants find so hospitable to their individual needs<\/p><\/blockquote>
Among all this, what we\u2019re missing out on is that weeds like our company. It\u2019s human activity that provides the precise concoction of nutrients and disturbed soil that these plants find so hospitable to their individual needs \u2013 they seek us out, only to receive a cold shoulder. In our urgency to maintain order, is there a chance that we\u2019re denying ourselves a deeper relationship with the natural world on our doorstep? If we\u2019re to pursue this possibility, the extent to which we\u2019re willing to ‘let it go and let it grow’ will vary from person to person, and from gardener to gardener. But maybe we owe it both to ourselves and to our gardens to explore how much further we might be willing to relinquish control, if only to come to a happier accommodation with the plants our soil wants to grow.<\/p>
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