More time is spent obsessing on weeds in the garden than anything else. We stress over them, plot to kill them, pull at them, dig them out, string trim them, curse them, and still they come back. What is it about weeds in the landscape that makes us all so insane?
Well, think about it…that is precisely what we are told to do by the big business of the landscape industry. I’m not saying that weeds are good, I am just suggesting that our insanity over them is fed by marketing, so maybe a perspective shift would help.
In his lecture titled “Fortune of the Republic”, delivered in 1878, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s asked and answered; “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered,…”
Today, many an herbalist will tell you that the plants we are tearing our hair out over have medicinal virtues that should rather endear us to them. Plants like clover, dandelion, and plantain to name a few. The truth, however, is we have been blinded by an image of man-made perfection – perfect grass turf with clean lines and plants all behaving in neat orderly fashion. A little blur is okay in some areas. Perfection isn’t really the goal, is it?