Wednesday, April 26, 2006

W & W Inc.

Weeds are bad: on this we can agree.

Wildflowers, on the other hand, are good. Except when they're bad.

Therein lies the difficulty.

Wildflowers are providential; weeds, pestilential. Wildflowers are little bits of beauty popping up when we least expect them, with no effort on our part. Weeds disturb our careful attempts at order, introducing inappropriate colors and textures into the garden. But when I try to divide our local flora into these careful categories, I find myself failing.

Dutchman's Breeches: good because attractive.
Garlic mustard: bad because invasive.
Mayapples: no useful purpose I'm aware of but nevertheless irresistibly adorable, like elven umbrellas sprouting from the forest floor.
Dandelions: in the meadow, acceptable; in the front yard, deplorable.
Trillium: good good good.
Poison ivy: the name says it all.

It's hopeless. No matter how much I rationalize my subjective responses to these plants, my scheme falls apart. But still, I can't shake the heartfelt feeling that weeds represent a curse and wildflowers, grace.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about the beauty of early Art Nouveau? Especially the designs of Victor Horta, show beauty can be weedy !!! :)

Laura said...

The best definition I've ever seen is Robert Fulghum's: "A weed is a plant growing where nobody want it to grow." It does take care of the dandelion problem neatly.

Anonymous said...

So wildflowers are wonderful and beautiful . . . until they invade your garden. Then you have a problem, because you don't want this flower to be there; it's not supposed to be there. Suddenly it is a weed instead of a wildflower. You cannot control this; everything devolves to disorder and chaos as "mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."