My Garden is absolutely full of weeds and do I care? NO!! I like certain weeds, probably those that are on the border between weeds and non-weeds because they complement my 'normal' plants so well, and they are easy enough to manage in my small garden. I cull out the seedlings which come up in spring in inconvenient places, and what is left just simply grows up with the perennials until they are standing tall in high summer amongst everything else, lending a fulsomeness and textural interest to the garden and sometimes colour. Although I do the main culling out of weedling/seedlings in spring, it actually goes on all season, because as they grow, if they start to take over from other plants drooping over and smothering the favourites later on in the season - out they come. Sometimes when the Orach can get so tall it becomes unwieldy leaning over other treasures, I often just trim the top out of it, as the rest of the 'weed' is usually the shape I want to fit in with the other plants. Just a little bit of judicious shaping and perhaps culling is all it needs. Even a weed can benefit from a prune!! These are my treasured weeds! Bronze Fennel - Foeniculum vulgare purpureum Red Orach - Atriplex hortensis rubra Verbena boniarensis Queen Annes Lace - Anthriscus sylvestris Nasturtiums Nicotiana sylvestris Although I know my weedy beauties can be invasive or even plague-like, I appreciate them because they come back in abundance every year like old friends, and in a small garden it is no problem to cull these marauders out in spring. Owners of large gardens may not feel the same way!! With these 'weeds' in my garden I look forward to late summer when they have grown tall finding their way up to the light between the perennials in the most fetching way. This, when they are at their best either flowering or setting seed. Earlier this season I was not so vigilant about thinning out the weeds in the spring. Usually I clear the seedlings away from the edges of the borders so they do not block pathways, but this year I left them just for fun. And it has been fun - they lean over the pathways most fetchingly. So much so that I need to part a space between the gorgeous things to weave my way down the path to the shed. And they feel so nice brushing against my face and body, and most importantly slow my journey down the garden path and in the process I notice more of what is what is going on around me in the garden.
So it is all a very sensuous business, and isn't that what gardening is all about - the senses? Sight , sound, smell and touch! Today, after a most welcome shower of rain overnight - the first for 2 months - these 'weeds' are leaning even more heavily over the path because they are bowed down with raindrops which means getting down to the shed is a very damp business today. A lovely cooling wet sensation after the dry heat of the last few weeks.
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