The first plant I ever fell in love with was a weed. It was one of those puffy, gone to seed, dandelions in our lawn. I was heartbroken as my father whacked them down, pulled them up, tossed them in the trash. I thought they were pretty little yellow flowers that offered up hours of delight as they turned into those magical puff-balls every child has blown to the wind. My fondest memory is running around the yard picking and puffing, giggling and then giggling some more as the seeds of more weeds were borne off into some mysterious place to germinate. It was only through a child’s innocent soul that one could find such fun in this simple act.
It was always a mystery to me which plant was a weed and which plant was not. My mother tended her flower garden with love and a certain vengeance for pulling up weeds. How did she know something was a weed and not, well, you know, a real plant. Then someone came along and educated me about weeds. My view of plants and weeds was changed forever. Weeds, my informant told me, were nothing more than plants sprouting where you didn’t want them to sprout. Oh, well, now that has meaning. It means that if I planted a plot of dandelions they would be plants not weeds. But, when I planted my first ever garden of marigolds, anything that wasn’t a marigold plant was a weed. Simple. No wonder my mother was so adept at identifying and dispatching weeds in her garden.
The side window in my solarium faces a small slot of land between two townhouse units and in this small space a fabulous terrarium of weeds grows with wicked abandon. Challenging, daring anyone to grab their neck and tear them out the ground. They stubbornly dig in deep roots and grow to the majestic height of almost eight feet tall and grace themselves with lovely, delicate white flowers in the late summer. I won’t let anyone rip them up and toss them out. And, even when they insinuate themselves through the deck railing of the unit next door overflowing onto her deck, my friend also embraces them as strong, beautiful weeds that we need to nurture and grow over the summer. Before long they are no longer weeds, but plants that we might have deliberately grown to enhance our little plot of ground. I hope they come back next year for I plan to inspect them very closely, as assuredly there are tiny fairy belles hiding under the umbrella of their lush leaves. I’ll be very quiet and find them.
I have far more regular plants in my life than weeds. And, I am more apt to want to get rid of the weeds before they choke out the plants I want to keep in my garden. Why, oh why can’t they just live together in harmony, each enhancing the other? Around our pond that constitutes my back yard is a lovely collection of weeds and plants I want. For weeks I have been asking management to sort out the wheat from the chaff around our picturesque pond, but to no avail. They intermingle, intertwine with each other. They intermarry and produce the most gorgeous hybrid flower children. But you have to be careful with weeds. Unlike our well trained, socialized, and polite plants, weeds have a tendency to be avant garde with a strong dose of disrespect for those dainty wuss flowers that have no stamina, no staying power like us weeds.
As I look around a room or a crowded subway I see clearly the weeds and the plants in this life. The weeds are assertive, offering no one a seat on the bus. They feel that only they matter. The plants need some attention, some nurturing, some protection from the invading weeds.
And so we pull the weeds from our life. We throw them into the dumpster and try to live as if they don’t exist. But, alas they do and, like the real weeds in our garden, we have to pay attention to them. Or, maybe, like the terrarium outside of my window, we can learn to live with them and give them some sun, room to grow, and finally to bloom – as lovely as the other plants.