“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.”—A.A. Milne
In high summer, in New England, we are surrounded by wildflowers, otherwise known as weeds. Sometimes I accept them or even invite them into the garden when they are attractive and can behave themselves. In fact, many of our cultivated flowers and vegetables have been developed from wild ancestors. An appreciation of weeds for their beauty, their scent, their generosity, should be balanced against the desire to eradicate unwanted plants from the garden.
“But what attracted me to weeds was not their beauty, but their resilience. I mean, despite being so widely despised, so unloved, killed every chance we get, they are so pervasive, so seemingly invincible.”—Carol Vokvan
The orange daylily, Hemerocallis fulva, is a import from Eurasia that has leapt from cultivation to fill roadsides with a great orange spectacle. Many gardeners bring it back in for its easy habit and showy flowers, but I find it will overpower more delicate plants, even smaller daylilies.
A field of oxeye daisies, Chrysantheum leucantheum, and yellow buttercups, Ranunculus acris, is such a quintessential New England scene, yet both plants are European introductions. I don’t like field daisies in the garden. They are prolific seeders that insinuate themselves into clumps of other plants and their floppy habit is too messy for me. A group of buttercups, though, is welcome for the glossy, waxy, bright yellow blooms and it is easy enough to pull out when past its prime.
Buttercups are members of the family Ranunculaceae, which is huge with over 2000 species in our region. Two members of this family are baneberries which I welcomed when they appeared in my garden. The white baneberry, Actea pachypoda, has a cluster of small white flowers in the spring, but it is the fruit that I appreciate. Shiny white berries, each with a black dot, clustered on red stems are what give this weed its common name, doll’s eyes. Red baneberry, Actea rubra, again is noticeable when loaded with fruit; this time shiny red clusters. The common name, baneberry, alludes to the poisonous quality of the beautiful fruit.
Queen Anne’s lace, Daucus carota, is a safer wildflower for the garden. It is the ancestor of our carrot. If you pull up a plant and scrape the skin of the root, there is a distinctive smell of carrot. To get Queen Anne’s lace, a biennial, to flower in the garden you must recognize the first-year seedling by its carrot foliage and leave it to grow and bloom with its pleasant ivory white umbel containing one dark floret in the center.
“It’s easy to take the time to stop and smell the roses but one must be willing to give of themselves enough to also stop and admire and understand life’s weeds.”—Colleen Dougherty
Native black-eyed Susans, Rudbeckia hirta, seem to appear overnight in my gardens, but since they are biennial, they were lurking for a year. The wild rudbeckia looks fine posing as a cultivated plant as long as it is supported by neighboring plants as if in a meadow.
The wasteland of roadsides is the habitat of two of my favorite weeds, chicory, Cichorium intybus, and maiden pinks, Dianthus deltoids, both European imports. Chicory seems to love the harsh roadside conditions and flourishes to produce its powder-blue blooms which close by noon except on cloudy days. It is also known as succory, blue sailors, or ragged sailors, and the root is valued as a beverage.
“When skillfully prepared, chicory is an excellent coffee substitute, more nearly approaching the taste of real coffee than most.”—Euell Gibbons
Maiden pinks are small enough to be overlooked, but a clump on the roadside or in an unkempt lawn, will catch the eye of the observant. The stems are just a few inches tall, each flower the size of a shirt button, but as a group of bright pink these little ladies make a good show.
“A weed is but an unloved flower.” –Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, is a handsome plant with big, smooth-textured leaves and beautiful pink flowers with a sweet scent; perfect for inclusion in a perennial bed or vegetable patch. But the most important reason to leave milkweed is to provide the only source of food for monarch butterfly caterpillars. As they feed on milkweed they ingest glycosides which make both pupae and adult butterflies toxic to predators. Unfortunately, human destruction of their habitat and food sources is not stopped by glycosides.
“What would the world be, once bereft of wet and wildness? Let them be left. O let them be left, wildness and wet, long live the weeds and the wildness yet.”—Gerard Manly Hopkins
“Wild thing. I think I love you.” –Chip Taylor
August 2017
Comments