Daily details from the garden to bring you inspiration throughout the year
Running my eye across the borders now, I’m reminded of what irks me most about our approach to gardening – our attitude to the plants we call ‘weeds’. As the goosegrass (cleavers, sticky-willy, or Gallium aparene, call it what you will) begins to emerge, there’s a certain fresh, fluffiness to the planting that I’m loathe to disturb. Elsewhere, slender speedwell (Veronica filliformis) will be romping along the surface forming mats of bright green punctuated by tiny, pale blue flowers. I know that both of these will create ‘problems’ if left unchecked, and that the sensible – and certainly the traditional – thing to do is to get in there right now and remove them, though the immediate effect on the border is, to my eye, not pleasing. Those things we’ve purposefully planted will move into the recently vacated space – probably, sometimes with a little encouragement. But the idea of removing things that grow here really well, in favour of things that don’t, always seems to me – like a disgraceful, mad old family member – slightly bonkers, though rarely mentioned.
A year of garden coaching
To find out more about my my 12 month online garden coaching programme, please visit the website, where you can read more details and add your name to the waiting list to be the first to hear when enrolment opens up again for the spring.
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Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, blogger, podcaster, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking the image above.
