I LOVE weeds ! Unfortunately they aren't to popular around here.
One time I had a house whose back yard was a little secluded. One spring I chose not to mow it for a while and let the dandelions and other grasses grow. It was an old yard that had not been stripped by poisons. I witnessed something I had not seen before in my life of nearly 60 years at the time. While doing dishes and watching out my kitchen window, I saw some small yellow finches partially hidden in the grass. They would get beside a dandelion stem, put one foot on the stem and then inch their way up/down it and with each little step, the stem bent over so that when the birds got to the head of it, they would stop and eat the dandelion seeds off the top. I was very impressed with their simple solution to reach the seeds. It was a lot of fun to watch.
I have often wondered if we as humans are looking right over our cure to cancer or other illnesses by trying to irradicate such wonderful plants as dandelions.
Now and then, an unmown plot of grass becomes spectacularly beautiful with all sorts of wild flowers. I really think both the land and the humans on it are made better for it. We deprive ourselves, not only of cures for illnesses in every backyard, but also of the joys that nature provides if we let her. Great comment! I had no idea you were so OLD! lol, not as old as me though. I'm super OLD. I was out dancing with the best of them last night, clogging even, at a festival out in the boondocks, on spectacularly gorgeous land, sylphs in the skies. It's all good, ya know?
I found it interesting to know things about clovers and the lack of them in a lot of yards now, although I have seen a small trend of some folks now trying to add them back in. Seems back in the 40s and 50s, the more clover seeds a bag of grass seed had in it, the more expensive it was, because people wanted that. THEN, came the poisons like round up that had been created for broad leaf grasses like DANDELIONS and the such and an unexpected side-effect, was it also killed the clovers. Unfortunately, that wasn't tragic enough for the industry to undo their blunder and so the clovers ended up as collateral damage in a lot of places. Little did they realize how much our honey bee population depended on the clovers. Ugh ! .... now people are scrambling to recover from THAT ! I had already studied that part, but that same summer that I let the backyard grow, I also got a chance to see this big patch of red top grass, which turns out to be another old grass that was included in the grass seed mix of yesteryear. Thing is, even where some still exists, we nearly never see the red tops since we mow it all too fast. I found it so beautiful, especially when the sunlight kissed it at a slant. Who knew?
Old?? Me?? You bet and I'm amazingly happy to still be here. I am 67 (and a half) now.
I don't know that grass. It's very pretty. Clover is one of my favorite flowers, and is a great cut flower too. I find the wild flowers attract far more pollinators than do cultivated flowers. They are smaller and less spectacular, but clearly more nutritious desired by bees and such. Gardening could be so simple if only we listened to the entities we grow, rather than trying to impose something we read in a book, or were told, on them. Do you know Ruth Stout?
I do not know Ruth Stout, but I will check her out. :)
This is such a gorgeous response. I'd love to see it as a post in the Hive Garden community. :) xx
Thanks ! 😊
Jacey, I love that image of the finches inching their way up the stalk to bend the dandelion down for easy feeding. :)
After 20+ years I persuaded the Man of the House to leave a little strip of lawn unmowed.
I'm amazed at how little grass remains there, and how many other things thrive there now!
In a drought year, when he stops mowing and the grass stops growing, wildflowers and tree seedlings take off like gangbusters. But the next year, rain comes again, he mows again, and all they mysteries that sprang from the soil go back underground, awaiting their day in the sun.
Cancer wouldn't be so prevalent if the USDA would stop allowing so many preservatives, chemicals, dyes, and garbage ingredients into our food. If we'd stay away from boxes and cans of ready-to-eat and cook from scratch, from our gardens, from foraging... but will billions of us on the planet, mass production is inevitable, and preservatives, and convenience.
#Homesteading looks great (surely those photos are doctored!), but again, BILLIONS of us, and only so many acres for homesteads... who gets to claim the meadow by the creek, the wooded trail by the river... only so many people can have the prized places. Like that animated movie "The Emperor's New Groove."
Pacha and his family love their hilltop (mountain top) home and don't want to hand it off to some spoiled young emperor ...
The Land Grab, the unending story ...