I like weeds. That’s pretty strong language for an avid flower gardener. After all, I spend good deal of energy and time each spring and summer yanking spotted spurge, lambsquarters, and other invaders out of perennial beds around my home. Let’s just say I admire them. They’re tenacious, adaptable, persistent. They overflow with life force.
Every year I lose assiduously cultivated, even pampered plants to disease, drought, insects and causes I can’t fathom. But inevitably, the same weeds return year after year with unbridled vigor. They may be obnoxious and annoying and cause me backaches from plucking them out of the soil, but on some level, I applaud their energy and regenerative power.
Of course, one person’s weed is another's flower or foraged dinner. While I will eagerly pull tangles of bindweed vine, crabgrass, and succulent purslane from the soil, I delight in the bright yellow tufts of dandelions in my lawn, and let fleabane’s tiny composite flowers bloom among my perennials. I think they’re as beautiful as many of the flowers I cultivate.
So, what is a weed? Webster’s calls it “an introduced plant growing in ground that is or has been under cultivation usu. to the detriment of the crop or to the disfigurement of the place.” Taking such guidance to heart, I guess I know one when I see one. It’s all about the plant and its context. Ultimately, a weed is a plant growing where it’s not wanted.
A more ecological view might consider a weed as a plant that easily germinates and grows well in areas that are disturbed by clearing and construction that results in soil compaction, harsh sunlight, and drought regimes. Very often these weeds are introduced from elsewhere and, lacking natural restraints, outcompete native species. That’s why weeds grow so well along roadsides. Their flowers can be undeniably beautiful, like white clusters of Queen Anne’s lace, or chicory’s soft blue, daisy-like blooms. As early 1672, John Josselyn’s New-England’s Rarities Discovered noted over twenty European weeds commonly found in Massachusetts, including many that are still ubiquitous, like mullein and plantain.
Weeds grow where nothing else will. They grab hold in the most hostile places. But that’s why I find them so admirable. I look for them wherever I go, often in the most unlikely places. Commonly they’re found in sidewalk and street pavement cracks, almost as if they are welling up from below like a percolating liquid. They grow out of fissures in walls, and where curbs meet a road’s edge. I also see them flourishing in rain gutters along the eaves of buildings, and popping out of chimneys. Sometimes, weeds will cover much of a roof, especially flat ones. But even a pitched roof can be can be sheathed in moss, especially if it’s well shaded.
Weeds have a bad rap, and deservedly so in many cases. Often highly invasive, they can choke out native species, damage infrastructure, and destroy crops. But they can also bring us beauty and illustrate characteristics we might admire in other contexts, like an ability to seize opportunities in the most adverse circumstances. All the mechanical, chemical and other means we use to make war on weeds will not eliminate them. So even as we fight a never-ending battle, we might as well look for them in unusual places, and acknowledge that we have an adversary worthy of our attention.
