I have watched and silently wept this spring as trees ready for nesting, forget-me-nots in full bloom, and buttercups about to burst forth have all been clipped and ripped, torn and shredded. And in their place? Nothing. Under the rules of good husbandry, this sort of pruning and weeding makes your plot look perfect and well-ordered, the soil pleasingly flat and tickled. But I am going to take my feminist rage at this word, husbandry, and rip it up like it has done to the wild things. Enough of this obsession with control and order.
Our world is in grave danger; the smallest beings that crawl and fly around this globe are disappearing. Yet there is a yawning gap between knowledge and practice, and it sits around one of the fundamental tenets of gardening: weeding. Between the nothing of bare earth and the next set of weeds is a hungry caterpillar, weary bee, or a sawfly larva with nothing to eat. There are no pointless insects; they all matter, as they are intricately interwoven into the food web.
House sparrow.
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House sparrow. Photograph: Alamy
We must ask ourselves every time we go to pull a plant that’s in the wrong place: is this necessary? Is it really spoiling the view, is it truly about to take over its neighbours, or just occupying a little space that would otherwise be bare?
Some weeds are like people. Bindweed, brambles and buttercups tend to dominate the conversation, though there’s always something interesting in there. Brambles are a difficult type, but if you are a small bird they are fortresses against neighbourhood cats. Buttercups could be considered creeps, but there are plenty of pollinators that are grateful for a flower that stays open however dull the weather.
nettle and dandelion
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‘An allotment with wild edges is not messy, it’s alive.’ Photograph: Alamy
These sorts do need to be kept in check, to be dug up – and no one will argue that you shouldn’t uproot bindweed the minute it appears. But perhaps the brambles, buttercups, and dandelions could be allowed to flower first. An allotment with wild edges is not messy, it’s alive; dandelions by the front door are cheery, particularly when they are being visited by a bumbling bee.
When aphids attack
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Here is how I now weed: I wait until the plant flowers. If it’s taking over, I remove it; if it’s occupying a spot I don’t have anything for, I deadhead. There’s an old saying for dock, nettles, and thistles that is well worth heeding: “Cut in May, they grow again someday/ Cut in June, that will be too soon/ Cut in July and they’re sure to die.” Take a pernicious weed out when it is setting seed and it will be using all its resources to do that, so it lacks the ability to regenerate from its roots. It also means the insects get their fair share.
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