Weeds or Treasures?

 I know there are plants that most people feel have no place in cultivated ground, or around homes, or in lawns. Weeds, we call them. It is true that there are times when I do pull volunteer plants out of the garden. Yet the truth is that no plant is really on my unimportant list. When something that I didn't plant comes up in my garden, my first response is curiousity. In my mind, plants are such miracles in themselves. They have evolved into millions of varieties, each one with its own distinctive characteristics. Each one fitting into the web of life, playing its part. Right now, many plants have come up in my garden, and I have pulled no "weeds" yet. Some of these plants are perennials, and I celebrate when I see that they've survived the winter and are ready for another growing season. Others, like dandelions, are plants I've not planted myself. But I hesitate to pull them. Dandelions are wonderful food, and I am always glad to see them. Other plants showing themselves in the garden these early days are seedlings from vegetables or flowers from last year. Others are wind-seeded and maybe still a mystery. It is only when "weeds" are competing for light and nourishment with plants I really want to nurture that I pull them. I have too much respect for plants to relegate many (if any) plant to the compost heap.When I do pull them, I usually lay them, roots up, alongside the row they came from so that they can eventually become mulch once they dry out.

One time last year, as I was driving to Kent Park, I noticed that I could not see any wild areas along the roadside. I was wishing that wild plants had more of a chance to flourish. We are such a tidy culture. And then I came on a section of ditch that was too steep and rugged for the city mowers to tackle, and there I saw lots and lots of beautiful plants growing with abandon, plants that would probably be classified as weeds by many, but so rich with color and shape and attributes. I was so happy to see these! And when I got to the park, I wrote this poem before I went on my hike:

Thank Heavens for Weeds!

Thank heavens they are not always mowing the roadsides anymore

Or spraying to remove unwanted vegetation.

The earth is too manicured as it is,

Every hill and valley planted with crops.

Lawns cultivated to grow only grass

Kept clipped so it can never mature.

When I drive down the highway and

Come across an area too steep for the big mowers,

Or too damp, or too rough,

I feel like shouting hallelujah!

Here the rightful residents are allowed to flourish,

Shooting up tall in their natural life cycle,

Flowering, seeding, and then sending sun energy

Back to roots for another season.

Free enterprise of the plant world!

What a smorgasbord of color, size, texture.

Here creativity can get a toehold.

A treasure chest of life and growth,

And source of food for other lives:

Seeds for birds, leaves for insects and animals,

Wonderful and vast root networks in which

Microorganisms flourish underground.

Nature set free, if only peripherally,

only in hard-to-manage areas.

Watching the wind blow through roadside botanical landscapes

Sets my spirit free.

I would like to pattern myself after these beautiful feral plants,

Learn from their free expression of self,

Resist clipping and trimming of my less cultivated qualities.