By David Crow
Conversations
David Crow
Spring yard work continues at my home. This week is dedicated to combatting weeds. Weed fighting is a full-time operation here in the New England growing season.
I have a lot of tools for dealing with weeds. I’ve got chemical armaments such as “weed and feed” fertilizer and spray-on “weed killer” for those weeds that aren’t destroyed by the former. I’ve also got physical tools such as shovels, trowels, rakes, loppers, choppers, cutters and other implements of destruction (thank you to Arlo Guthrie for that phrase) for dealing with the weeds that inevitably elude my chemical attack.
Yet despite the chemicals and the implements of destruction, I always seem to have a few hardy weeds that are particularly ingenious and determined.
I have this one weed that, no matter how hard I hit it with the chemicals and the implements of destruction, sprouts again and tries to choke a decorative tree in my front flower bed. It’s an angry-looking weed with long thorny tendrils and deep roots. I’ve poisoned it, I’ve chopped it back and I’ve even tried to dig up its roots. But within a few days of my latest attack, new evil little tendrils begin winding around my tree again.
The strange part is this weed is also very industrious. It doesn’t take long for it to bloom with pretty white flowers that remind me of daisies. The flowers are pretty. I hate to admit this, but sometimes I stand and admire those little flowers.
Also, like everyone else with a lawn, I’ve always got a few dandelions. Unlike the singular and indestructible winding weed in my flower bed, dandelions adopt the “carpet bomb” approach to being weeds. Dandelions parachute in by the hundreds and thousands of little seeds from wherever they were before. Their approach is to come in such numbers that you can’t possibly get rid of them all. The chemicals do a pretty good job on them, but inevitably I always have to do some manual removal of dandelions from the lawn.
Yet at times I find the yellow flower of a dandelion standing out against the green lawn a pleasing sight.
I’ve begun to wonder if I really know what a “weed” is. My previous belief was that a “weed” was a plant that was growing somewhere where it’s not wanted. However, plants are supposed to grow, and like any plant they’ll grow best where there is plenty of water and sunshine and food, such as a lawn or a flower bed. It’s not the fault of the “weeds” that they’re being called a nasty name. They’re just doing what plants do in the best place possible.
After all, even that savage little weed in my flower bed gives me pretty flowers to admire despite the fact I’ve been actively trying to kill it for years.
Maybe I’m the one with the problem. While I’m not prepared to declare a “weed amnesty” at my house, perhaps this spring and summer I will take a bit of time to admire the flowers, grit and determination displayed by these tough little plants in spite of the odds.
Until next time, y’all come out!
David Crow lives in Orange with his wife and three children. He practices law and he asks everyone to call him “Dave.” Only his mother and his wife call him “David,” and only when they’re mad at him. You can contact Dave at Sit.a.Spell.and.Visit@gmail.com. He’ll always find a half hour for a good chat.