Wee-eed

All jubileed out now it's time to focus on the big Open Gardens Event that is only about three weeks away. The recent nostalgia for all things 1950s and a picture I saw of Bill and Ben and their little friend got me thinking about weeds!

Friends in a botanical art class were recently tasked with making a picture of a weed plant; one chose to depict Forget-me-Nots in watercolour, another Pulmonaria. Now I consider both of these plants to be flowers to encourage rather than eliminate. I know forget-me-nots can be a bit overenthusiastic, but are glorious in their own way. But what then is a weed? Is it just a plant in the wrong place, or something more sinister? The Farmers Almanac of 1881 said "Weeds are little vices that beset plant life and are to be got rid of the best way we know how".

The principal little vice that besets my garden is Cleavers or, as I also know it, Sticky Willy. An inocuous looking little plant to start with, it shoots out yards and yards of sticky foliage in all directions and swamps everything given a chance. Very satisfying to pull out as the yards are gathered in, but much better not to have it in the first place. Couch grass is another pernicious devil that definitely besets areas of our bank in particular, thus have I spent much of this afternoon on my knees to avoid slipping downwards, trying to get as much of its roots out as possible. I will never clear it all. Then there's mares tails, so strong it will shoot through the tarmac on the pavements outside our front wall and a weed you can never get the whole root of out. But, the daddy of them all for underground spreading is Ground Elder, to be despised and loathed at all costs. I fear again that short of using something very toxic, which I'd rather not do, I shall never rid our plot completely All I can hope to do is manage it as best I can.

On the other hand there are those plants that fall into the weed category that I really don't mind; borage that grows so lusciously on the bank giving cover to the ground, producing beautiful bright blue flowers and nectar for lots of buzzy things, dandelions that also flourish in our soil and feed my friend's rabbit Gizmo and guinea pig Ted so well, and lastly the asters, probably not weeds in the accepted sense, but in our garden they multiply just as weeds do so I feel able to hoick out those plants that grow where I don't want them and move them along to the compost heap.

I shall carry on trying to get rid of as many unwanted weeds as possible before the big day but trust visitors will be kind and turn a blind eye if I fail to clear them all.