This approach is the main reason I subscribe to your substack, thanks for changing my thinking! This year, for the first time, I've learned to embrace our garden's wilder bits, which means I now really enjoy gardening without feeling overwhelmed by "weeds". Just one example - realising that Herb Robert actually makes nice ground cover has made my life much easier! And the bees love it
Thanks Louise, I'm really happy the Wild Way has helped, thanks for the feedback. I love Herb Robert for that reason, I actually planted it into our garden here from the driveway! It's created a lovely light ground cover under an alder tree and is slowly seeding down hill in dry shade. Amazing really!
I love this ethos. I've been so much more relaxed over the last year or two about the perceived 'pests' and what everyone calls weeds and it definitely makes for a happier garden experience. The plants I add still survive and the 'weeds' just add an extra layer of colour and interest often when not much else is going on.
Thanks Emma, it's a good head scratcher challenge to incorporate the most vigorous 'weed' colours into a colour scheme. I'm not sure I've quite achieved it yet in our main garden with the buttercups bit it's getting there. On the patio it does work with the stronger purples of the aquilegia and colour of the stone.
I absolutely love this article! I am a passionate defender of the natural world (and a novice gardener, learning a great deal as I go along!). I have just started hosting events for children to help them reconnect with nature, and one of the things we try to share with them is how to let go of the human-centric way of compartmentalising different species, losing the labels of 'pest', 'weed', 'vermin' etc. Thank you for helping to shift perspectives and for facilitating a more compassionate way of viewing the other lifeforms we share our spaces with. The interconnectedness of life is utterly magical - the more I learn, the more it fascinates me. Thank you for another beautiful article that will undoubtedly help forge the way for a more gentle and accepting relationship with the natural world in 'our' garden spaces.
Your thinking intrigues me. I'm just a few years into gardening and re-wilding in upstate New York. The issue of letting weeds be weeds is rather challenging because I don't have enough strong-growing plants to compete with the thick grass (former cauliflower and dairy fields) and goldenrods. Some are great, but if left alone, we would having but goldenrods. When we arrived, they had formed a tall, thick wall shutting out other plants, birds, and small mammals. Now we have been hand-weeding, keeping some and making space for more diverse species. But it is a never-ending, thankless job except for the appearance of more birds and rabbits, and some lovely new/native grasses, cranberries, and surprising plants that I have never seen and still struggle to identify. I'm such a novice. Thoughts?
This approach is the main reason I subscribe to your substack, thanks for changing my thinking! This year, for the first time, I've learned to embrace our garden's wilder bits, which means I now really enjoy gardening without feeling overwhelmed by "weeds". Just one example - realising that Herb Robert actually makes nice ground cover has made my life much easier! And the bees love it
Thanks Louise, I'm really happy the Wild Way has helped, thanks for the feedback. I love Herb Robert for that reason, I actually planted it into our garden here from the driveway! It's created a lovely light ground cover under an alder tree and is slowly seeding down hill in dry shade. Amazing really!
I love this ethos. I've been so much more relaxed over the last year or two about the perceived 'pests' and what everyone calls weeds and it definitely makes for a happier garden experience. The plants I add still survive and the 'weeds' just add an extra layer of colour and interest often when not much else is going on.
Thanks Emma, it's a good head scratcher challenge to incorporate the most vigorous 'weed' colours into a colour scheme. I'm not sure I've quite achieved it yet in our main garden with the buttercups bit it's getting there. On the patio it does work with the stronger purples of the aquilegia and colour of the stone.
I absolutely love this article! I am a passionate defender of the natural world (and a novice gardener, learning a great deal as I go along!). I have just started hosting events for children to help them reconnect with nature, and one of the things we try to share with them is how to let go of the human-centric way of compartmentalising different species, losing the labels of 'pest', 'weed', 'vermin' etc. Thank you for helping to shift perspectives and for facilitating a more compassionate way of viewing the other lifeforms we share our spaces with. The interconnectedness of life is utterly magical - the more I learn, the more it fascinates me. Thank you for another beautiful article that will undoubtedly help forge the way for a more gentle and accepting relationship with the natural world in 'our' garden spaces.
Your thinking intrigues me. I'm just a few years into gardening and re-wilding in upstate New York. The issue of letting weeds be weeds is rather challenging because I don't have enough strong-growing plants to compete with the thick grass (former cauliflower and dairy fields) and goldenrods. Some are great, but if left alone, we would having but goldenrods. When we arrived, they had formed a tall, thick wall shutting out other plants, birds, and small mammals. Now we have been hand-weeding, keeping some and making space for more diverse species. But it is a never-ending, thankless job except for the appearance of more birds and rabbits, and some lovely new/native grasses, cranberries, and surprising plants that I have never seen and still struggle to identify. I'm such a novice. Thoughts?