Nature Connection: A Weed By Any Other Name

Here we are, almost at the end of May, and the trees, shrubs and flowers are all having a wonderful time as the warblers pass through and the cardinals begin feeding nestlings. It’s a beautiful time of year, and I don’t know about you, but I needed it more than ever this year.

My yard is full of birds squabbling and singing and pulling old grasses and eating worms and harassing me to put out more oranges and grape jelly. They come in such marvelous colors: blue, red, orange, yellow, and oh so many combinations of gray, brown and black, an artist’s delight. Between the birds and the flowers, I’m finding it difficult to focus on work, but hey, spring is the best reason ever for playing hooky in my little book of wisdom.

Unless you are addicted to herbicides and leaf blowers you probably have all sorts of volunteer plants popping up in your yard and garden. There are plantain and chickweed, sorrel and evening primrose, pokeweed and Queen Anne’s lace, and of course dandelions galore. Our yard bunnies are fans of all these and leave my many flowers such as echinacea, milkweed, daisies, black-eyed Susans and hostas alone.

Some of you will shake your head and grumble, “Weeds!” I pull the ones from the vegetable garden but leave a few in the pollinator gardens for the baby bunnies to chomp on instead of the bee balm and coreopsis. A weed is simply a flower, just like a daisy or an iris or a lily. Most are native, unlike the latter two. For some reason we fussy humans decided to replace native plants with fancy cultivars from other countries because they had bigger, fancier blooms.

Until somewhat recently that didn’t have a huge impact on our pollinator population, but combined with our hyper-dependence on herbicides and pesticides, it is only adding to our ecological imbalance. More and more I realize how few people are aware of how our food is grown and our dependence on natural cycles, weather and particularly insects. If you’re a concerned citizen, you know our food production worldwide is becoming threatened along with a rapidly changing freshwater supply. 

If you don’t already, try growing some food this summer. It will help give you an awareness of what it takes to grow even relatively easy food like lettuce or tomatoes and what it would take to grow enough food to feed your family for a year. Between weather conditions and all the lovely little creatures that wish to share your bounty, it is not easy to grow food. Old school farmers always knew this and allowed for a percentage to be lost to varmints, droughts and floods. 

Even they, however, often ran short by the time spring came along and all those plants that popped up in the yard were welcome additions to the spring table. Many of our early spring so-called weeds have good nutritional value and were often the first fresh foods after a long winter eating dried and canned food from the previous summer and fall.

Many people are relearning ways to forage and use the plants that are commonly pulled up and tossed away. Young leaves can be added to salads while many older leaves can be chopped and added to broths or casseroles. Do your due diligence when foraging and be positive of your identification, for not all plants are human-friendly. We tend to know this about mushrooms but there are many other plants that will give you a tummy ache if you don’t know how to prepare them. Pokeweed is a good example of this. Much of the plant is toxic, but not all. In order for it to be useful and safe it must be prepared in a particular way and should not be fooled around with too casually. The same is true of many wild berries. Some are delightfully edible while others will cause serious gastrointestinal distress, and in some cases, death.

Over the last few years, I’ve learned to identify most of the plants that crop up in my lawn and am learning the various things they teach us about our soil. Some tell us there’s not enough drainage while others convey the truth about acidity or lack thereof. It’s all a wonderful balancing act, and the challenge is one that we can learn about and amend without chemicals or toxins. Imagine that.

Native plants, especially the ones we derisively call weeds, are often less showy than the ornamentals that fill the shelves and tables at garden centers. Look carefully, though, and notice the insects that are feeding on them. Notice, too, the birds that are feeding on the insects, but also the seeds that come after the flowers.

We’ve unfortunately gotten used to the appearance of a highly manicured monoculture lawn and plants with huge blossoms. Some of us are relearning how to live with a messier, livelier lawn and garden. We can still mow close to our homes while letting some parts of our properties grow a bit wilder. Start with a native ground cover instead of ivy, add a few native shrubs instead of more roses or, excuse the blasphemy, hydrangeas. Neither of the latter plants like our increasingly hot and dry summers, but native shrubs are OK with most of it, not needing much water at all. These native plants make up for their lack of intrinsic exotic beauty by hosting the exotic beauty of butterflies, dragonflies, non-stinging wasps, bumblebees and hummingbirds.

This summer, perhaps learn more about native gardening and how to live with the plants you were taught to eradicate as weeds. Especially if you have bunny or deer issues, consider letting some wild things grow to distract them from your special plants. And while you’re at it, maybe taste a few and be pleasantly surprised by the simple foods in our own backyards.