Whenever I show my garden to a new person, I say, before they have seen a thing, “I love weeds.” Some of them think I am kidding, but they soon realize that I am not.
When I was living in a small hillbilly town in upstate NY as a child, I spent a lot of time out wandering in the woods near my home, and once upon a time came across an old abandoned garden. This garden was contained by tall hedges forming a large rectangle, and was full of once-tended-then-derelict cultivated flowers, along with a whole lot of gorgeous weeds. I would go there and look for the fairies or spirits who were tending it. I believe in spirits you see, very much so. If you believe in them, they appear to you. But you must believe. Like Tinkerbell.
One of my favorite classes in high school was a biology class, for which we once had to go out identifying the trees in town. I got really into that assignment. I then became very interested in identifying all the weeds around me. I got myself a copy of Peterson’s Guide to the Wildflowers, and set off to give names to all those pretty things in the world, the ones shooting up from cracks in the sidewalks, climbing up trees, coloring the fields and forests everywhere.
It’s a beautiful world we live in, people. Charming, and I was very much charmed by a Birds Foot Trefoil, a Trillium, even by poison ivy, which is an especially lovely plant. It wasn’t long before I also became intrigued by the medicinal properties of nature’s abundance.
My garden is unusual by most gardening standards. I developed my style while living in a beautiful brownstone in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, NY, where I had a very small backyard, a mere 900 square feet - large by city standards! Oh, I had my bit of orderliness when you first walked out into the space, a small piece of lawn, large enough for a few kids to enjoy dips in a kiddie pool, or for my young son to bat around wiffle balls. There was a climbing rose on a trellis over a walkway, and a formal-ish flower bed with a weeping cherry in the center, lilies, hydrangea, sedum and other pretty cultivated things nicely placed around it. But my favorite part of the garden was the very last ten feet in the back. Here, in varying depths of shade, was my private wild garden, a space that looked like the fairies tended it. I let a lot of weeds grow among the forest-loving cultivated plants. I put myself a lovely stone bench in there, and would let the spirits come to me.
I can’t live without a bit of wild space of my very own.
Now that I’ve moved again into a house with a small backyard, I have followed the same template as that garden in Brooklyn. Close to the house is more tame, more socially acceptable, people ooh and ahh over the varieties of hosta I can grow without fear of deer decimation. But as you walk toward the back of my yard, weeds begin to appear, lots of weeds.
Dandelion is the first and most notable, and is everywhere in the walkways between my raised vegetable beds. What a wonderful plant dandelion is! Every single part of the plant is edible and/or medicinal for humans, and I am convinced it detoxifies not only our bodies, but also the land it grows in. Chickweed, birds foot trefoil, plantain, clover, cleavers, docks, lamb’s quarters, sourgrass, goldenrod – all these and more grow happily in my yard. Yes, I do weed them so they don’t take over the other plants I’ve put out there: calendula (nothing will take over that stuff!), yarrow, hyssop, chamomile, echinacea, foxglove etc. I let all these things reseed as they will, and weed them as needed all year long, sometimes to harvest for tinctures, poultices, balms or bouquets.
It’s wild out there!!! The way I love it.
Here are a few shots, taken today, of what many people think looks like quite a mess. It's producing far more food than I can eat, mess that it is, and makes me, my dog, and my two cats very happy.
This is my entry to Hive Garden Community's newest initiative, the weekly garden theme. This week's theme is Weeds.
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 ...
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Thank you!!
Thank you!
We were commenting on the beauty of the Fireweed, Wild Carrot and Yarrow yesterday while out walking. As my lovely neighbour used to say, there are no weeds, just flowers in the wrong place.
Truth! There are a very few things I always pull up, such as crab grass. Otherwise, I give any so-called weed some thought before I kill it. Do the plants around it look happy? Are they friends? If so, they stay.
Lets call the WILD flowers 💐 💐 💐
Thanks for stopping by!
That mess looks a bit like my mum veggie garden :D Especially in early fall when things stop growing and there is simply no need to keep it cleaner. Then... everything goes!
Cause weeds are cool!
I know you think so, your photos are so often of what most consider weeds. Thistle!
We eat a lot of "weeds" here, including blackjacks
I don't know what a blackjack is, but I've just learned it has medicinal properties as well as being edible. I don't think it grows here.
I try to eat weeds, I really do, but I think they might be an acquired taste! I use them for medicine, both for me, and for my property. And for prettiness. I love pretty weeds. Most of them are pretty, except for crabgrass, which I ruthlessly destroy.
Beautiful beautiful beautiful... Th
ere is a fabulous book called Weeds: Guardians of the Soil, by Joseph Cocannaeur... And even before reading it, I would agree with you that dandelion and many other wild plants detoxify and heal the soil. So do ants, they do massive work cultivating fungi and aerating, etc. Your garden is gorgeous. You're mind is as well.
Why thank you! I love nature and the wondrous things that can happen, if we let them. I think I once read that book, but it sounds like it's time to do it again.
🤗
We witnessed, first hand, how important "weeds" are to the ecosystem. The city stopped treating the grass in the park behind our building with herbicide this year. In the spring we had one of the largest dandelion blooms I've seen since my childhood. As we've been feeding the squirrels this summer we've noticed the honeybees are coming back in numbers I haven't seen since we've moved to this part of town (2018). I guess the hives rely on that early pollen from the dandelions to strengthen their population after the long winter and when we treat our lawns it starves them of that early food supply. It's amazing how resilient nature is if we just give it a chance. We've gone from seeing 1 or 2 bees all summer to seeing an entire field of them buzzing around.
Yes! I wish more municipalities would stop spraying their grassy areas. Health would improve! Why did the city stop treating the weeds? Did people object? There would be a tax savings. Next we have to stop the fluoride in municipal water.
Dandelions are a very early food source for both bees and humans. Super useful and important plant. It's pretty too. I have no idea why it's so reviled, except that it destroys the much less interesting grass it grows in.
I want bees to find my yard right at the beginning of the season, and for them to put my little plot on their flight paths early. I'm having an excellent year in the veggie garden this year, as if I have to do less work for more food. Ruth Stout style! I love her. I think you were the one who introduced her to me, no?
I wish they would too. The results we've seen have been nothing short of miraculous. This park is just has the footprint of one square city block and we're seeing bees up to 4-5 blocks away from it. I'm unsure as to why they stopped spraying it but I'd guess it's because of budget shortfalls. Fluoride is a huge toxin! We use a Burkey water filter for our drinking water and also have one on our shower. The fluoride calcifies the human pineal gland, among other things.
Like so many other things the lawn chemical and equipment industry have sold the public on the concept of the pristine, English-style lawn and by doing so created a market to sell their poisons. Sad, it's a matter changing peoples' perceptions of what an ideal yard should look like. A lot of the younger generations are planting native plants in their yards, and using low growing green mosses, instead of maintaining a lawn. The moss is a nice option because they don't have to be cut. Our son plans to plant moss instead of grass when he buys his first house.
You have the right idea and I wish there were more people like you. I, honestly, don't remember mentioning Ruth but I've read lots about her methods so I might have! How I miss my garden! We nearly put an offer in on a house we looked at yesterday. We thought we'd "sleep on it" and woke up this morning and saw someone had already submitted an offer contingent on inspection.
That's how it often goes,I'm afraid. You can make an offer, and sleep on it before you sign any contracts can't you? The good news is that you are on the move!
This is the route we'll take the next time, for sure. The prices are so inflated we don't want to get into a bidding war but we might get lucky! When it's meant to be I think it'll work out. This one was nearly perfect yesterday though other than being a tad too big. We've definitely found location we want to be in, close to the city but with a small town feel.
Love this @owasco! Sorry it's taken too long to get around to commenting - we've had a weekend here and just started work on Tuesday where I generally have more time to comment.
I love how you have turned a perfectly tamed garden into a far wilder one! I wonder if your 'sourgrass' is our 'oxalis'? I'm not sure. Mum's gotta hella problem with that and we're struggling to see it as a beneficial weed. My own garden as you know is far more weedy. I intentionally planted dandelion seed as they were not forthcoming! I'm looking forward to getting amongst my own 'weeds' - both teachers and healers.
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My sour grass is also called wood sorrel. It looks kinda oxalis-y, but it's very easy to pull out, and is quite pretty, so I let it go quite a lot. I honestly think many of my deliberately planted things love it at their feet. And it is edible in salads.
There's never a need to apologize over here River my love. Never. And it's barely been two days!
I just saw your post and love how much you love the weeds, the elementals, and letting nature take care of the land. I too am ruthless with the crabgrass as it suffocates everything. I grow so many flowers for the gardens and love to sit and let the spirits have a beautiful place to romp and enjoy. I have had so many little fairies and orbs show up in my photos over the years. One day, I was meditating on the porch and a fairy flew by me and said hello. It was the sweetest moment. Love your garden!
That means a lot to me @sunscape! How nice to hear someone else can sense fairies and spirits. I am a happy person, in large part because I am surrounded by many happy and helpful beings. My faves are the sylphs in the skies, more and more often now. They are needed.
So I've been pressure canning. Yesterday I used lids that I had bought at an Amish store, and three of the jars were not bubbling when I removed them from the canner. One of those didn't seal. Do you think the other two are safe? Of course, I don't know which is which now, silly me. I forgot to mark those two. erg.
Another beautiful post, another "late to the party" with me, but I love it.
Even when you declare garlic mustard deserves space in your yard (I believe you may have recanted on that one?), and even if an invader like the endearing yellow birdsfoot trefoil wins you over.
Ok, you know me, and you know the drill. :)
Well, you're not in the Midwest.
You inspire me with your gardening (and cooking!) and I wanna be like you!
(Still a work in progress)
I pull up garlic mustard by the roots the minute I lay eyes on it. I should have listened to you! Fortunately, it is not as prevalent at my new home, just here and there it shoots up and, since my yard is so small, it doesn't last long once I see it.