Now the clocks have gone forward, the sun has come out to play and nature has revived itself – but what can this mean? Since the 1st March Spring has come, and is due to stay a while, it has brought many charming sights in nature. However, it is not all fun and games in many home owners’ minds – weeds are back, and they are infesting their gardens.
For a gardener, the ideal garden tends to have a wide range of sprightly flowers and freshly mown lawn. They are known to dedicate hours into crafting a garden to look beautiful, something special. So, when spring rolls around along with tulips, bluebells, primroses and more, you would believe that they would be delighted that it is springtime once more. And they are for the most part, except that many believe that the restoration of weeds is a curse, not a blessing. I asked Sandra Duckhoff, an enthusiastic gardener, what her opinion on weeds was, and why they are so disliked.
“There is definitely a huge stigma around weeds, and I believe it is rightly so. They appear when you least expect it, and you have to spend time to fully get them out of your garden. I usually leave weed killer in places where they come often, and even then, this is sometimes not enough. Weeds can also often have traits to it which makes them hard to remove, like thorns, and so I have to go through a lot of effort in order to get rid of them completely. I personally would hate to have them in mine.”
There is a lot of competition between plants involving space, sunlight, water and more, and this is often where weeds become disliked. The amount of space and nutrients used by weeds could mean that a different type of plant is left without enough to survive. This then further becomes a problem if flowers, or crops, have stunted growth, as it will leave the garden with a wilting flower and a perky weed, which is not what the gardener wanted.
In the countryside, however, weeds are not often considered to be menaces that the towns make it out to be. Essentially, a field full of fluorescent dandelions may surprisingly be just as scenic as those tulips at the store, since ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. Their freedom to grow anywhere and everywhere spontaneously means that they can often bring a touch of colour to what would have been just been a plain field. Bill Lee’s corner garden has so much metal junk sprouting scornfully, drawing attention away from the neighbours’ tidy lawns and flower beds and he said, “Weeds are just like any other plant, and I find it strange that they are disliked as much as they are. I only get rid of the ones that are nuisances, but the rest I consider to be quite nice as it gives you’re a garden a more rugged, realistic look”.
Furthermore, weeds can be more than meets the eye. Despite the dispute as to whether or not they are good-looking, they do have some beneficial qualities. Firstly, although some are poisonous, many are a source of food for wildlife. In fact, some weeds are fit for us to eat, such as dandelions if they are cleaned and prepared properly. Moreover, since the cycle of growing and then dying is quite frequent, the organic matter in the soil tends to increase, which is good for surrounding plants as well.
So, depending on the person you ask, you may hear two sides of the spectrum on whether weeds are good, or if they are pests. Research finds that weeds share both negative and positive attributes, and so maybe the strong aversion to weeds is not entirely justified after all.
By Klara Bell, Newstead Wood School
