"Hey! Who are you calling a WEED!"

I've been thinking a lot about weeds lately.

Over the winter, I bought my daughter a wildflower book. I have lovely memories of picking wildflowers with my mom. We went for long walks, picked lovely flowers and pressed them. I remember putting the flowers between sheets of paper and placing them into our huge unabridged dictionary and Encyclopedia Britannicas to flatten them. We decorated photo albums with the flowers. (As an archivist, I now know that decorating paper-based materials with living things hastens the demise of one's creations, but this isn't important to the story. I just thought I should mention it.) As a kid, I also loved searching for four leaf clovers. For the past two years, my daughter and I have sought a four-leaf clover for good luck. My album as a kid was full of them, but today I can't find a single one on my lawn, the lawns of my friends, or a public lawn. I'm sure my friends think I'm strange when I get down on hands and knees picking through clover, but one must remain forever childlike when playing in nature. I just don't care what others think about my exploits!

My wildflowers and clover are surely considered "weeds," but I love them just the same. A weed is a plant in the wrong place at the wrong time. But there are right times and places for them and we must consider their use wisely. Weeds should not be eradicated without thought. (By the way, why do we sometimes call weeds "wildflowers" and call wildflowers "weeds?")

Okay...here's a plant that most Americans would surely agree is a weed, but I have a new found love for it. The dandelion is a bane to every American lawn. In my effort to go organic, I used corn gluten on the lawn to eradicate weeds early in the season. Dandelions remain on the edges of my property. What luck! A green lawn and happy peripheral weeds. My daughter and I collected the dandelions we found and made dandelion tea with a little Melissa Officianilis (a lemony herb) mixed in. It was yummy. My daughter asked for more the next day. (To make dandelion tea, use the leaves and steep in boiling water a top on - a tea pot works great - for ten minutes.) I have read that dandelion leaves are super nutritious and lovely in salads. I will have to try this after our dandelions replenish themselves.

I am currently reading "Secrets of the Soil," which talks about the importance of weeds for aerating soil. The right weeds can even help your more favored plants thrive with one plant feeding another's needs side-by-side. This is something I plan to look into a little more. I am also reading "The Organic Lawn Care Manual" by Paul Tukey. He devotes a whole chapter to weeds and discusses how the type of weed you have on your lawn can tell you what treatment your lawn needs. (The chickweed on my lawn indicates a lack of calcium.)

So the next time you see a weed, don't pull it right away. Give it a little consideration and recognize that the weed is just another part of nature from which we can garner information and a little beauty.
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I purchased this 'Dark Dancer' clover at the garden center last week. It is surely a weed in someone's book, but it is a treasure to me. It is full of four leaf clovers!





I found this lovely little 'weed' on the corner of my street and brought it home. It looks very much like the Brunnera flowers I paid good money for last year and I think it is a forget-me-not, another flower for which I paid a nice penny.








This chickory 'weed' tells me that my lawn needs calcium. Thanks chickory!






This 'Jacob's Ladder plant was dug out of a friend's woods. The local nursery charges $14 for it.

Rationalizing...

I visited five garden centers last week. Only one was a planned visit. I spent money at each place I visited. Okay, I'll give myself that it is early in the season. I'm excited. My gardens are crying for attention. I'm yearning for bare spots to be filled. The garden centers entice with flowers already in bloom. My garden is still in its last stages of dozing. (Wait...none of the things I bought last week are in bloom yet.Let's change that thought...) The pictures on the labels promising what particular plants will look like when in bloom cried out to me. I've developed a thing for chartreuse too. I noticed that in my garden only my three eunonymous plants have chartreuse, so of course I had to buy the chartreuse sedum that excited me when I saw it. Then I had a thing going and had to buy the chartreuse artemesia to balance the yard. After all, artemesia is one of my favorite plants and I have never seen it in this color! I visited the Bedford Garden Club's annual plant sale and I have to support the local garden club right? My daughter and I always enjoy their plantings downtown and at the library. We want them to keep up the good work. I had to be fair and buy my daughter a plant too, for her new reading garden. She really liked the bleeding heart at the plant sale. How could I say "no"? And the new garden center that my friend Sara introduced me to this weekend? Well, the prices were too good to pass up! I bought a 'Dark Dancer' clover. I have never seen anything like it. It was loaded with four leaf clovers and I've been telling my daughter for two years that I will find her a four leaf clover for good luck , but our searches have been to no avail. Since this was loaded with them, I took it as a sign that I had to get it and it was only $4! They also had a yellow rose bush that supposedly smells like licorice. Considering that yellow roses are my absolute favorite and I am a fanatic for licorice, I couldn't let that one go either...It was another sign.

Well, it's too early in the season to declare that I have a problem. But I do need to rein it in now. I have some specific plans that need attention. I'm on the lookout for unusual herbs for my herb garden this year. I am also looking for a lovely smelling ground cover for my daughter's reading garden path. (I'm leaning toward creeping thyme, but need to watch the light to make sure it is enough for this plant.) Finally, I need a little ground cover for an area leading to my back yard. Otherwise, I'm done... At least for a few weeks... Oh yes, and I only need 20 more points at my favorite garden center to get $25 worth of plants free - I'm so excited that they carry over points from last year. Not every place does that - So of course I need to go there soon too...

Clover Lawns Protect the Environment and Beautify Your Yard

My new blogger friend Esther commented on yesterday's blog that she wanted further explanation for my attraction to clover lawns. I realized I've only mentioned that I've become a big fan of them, but I haven't explained myself.

As we all know, keeping a grass lawn green takes a lot of water and often a lot of chemicals. I have been convinced by a fellow gardener that American's attraction to grass was the result of clever marketing. We deem clover a weed, but how many of us have ever seen a full clover lawn?

It is a beautiful site. While interviewing gardeners for my upcoming book, I met Cindy. She is the first proponent for the clover lawn whom I have ever met. Here is why:

• Clover stays green without chemicals
• It takes little water
• It maintains the health of the soil - proper nutrients, proper animal life, healthy microorganisms thrive in a clover lawn
• It takes less mowing than grass
• It is softer under foot than grass
• It is gorgeous!

Here is a photo of Cindy's lawn:

Eleanor Perenyi in her book Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden espouses the benefits of "alternative" lawns. She says, "Alternatives are few, but there is one I would commend to lawn-lovers in the North: that old favorite, white clover (Trifolium repens). Clover lawns aren't new and time was when all good grass mixtures included clover seed. Clover will grow almost anywhere that isn't too dry or too hot, isn't particular about soil (which benefits by adding nitrogen), makes a dense, weed resistant carpet that cuts mowing by half, greens up early...The real reason you don't see clover any more is that it is killed by broad-leaved herbicides...Once again a good thing is pushed off the market for reasons that have nothing to do with the consumer's interests" (p. 115) Perenyi wrote this almost thirty years ago. It's time to bring back the clover lawn!

Random Sunday Ruminating

Among the common bulbs I have in my garden is the modest little crocus. The crocus ushers in spring for me. I always remember the crocus as the first blossoms in my garden. Just when I feel the snow is not melting fast enough...the blooms arrive. They arrived this morning.

I just started digging my new garden yesterday. The perimeters of my my yard are still surrounded by snow, but the center of the property is soft enough to drive in a spade.

I see that the moles were busy at work over the winter. I am going to try to chase them away by burying fish heads in their holes. I picked this tip up in a gardening book I read this winter. The poison I used last autumn obviously didn't work...I'd prefer to go natural anyway and I'm heading to all natural throughout the yard this year.

My husband told me that since I canceled lawn service last year that he planned to go pick up Scott's 4 step. I told him, "I don't want that crap on my lawn." He smiled patiently at me and told me that it is cute when I curse. Since I don't do it often, he says he knows I'm serious when I do. He also told me that he thinks to himself, "Isn't it cute? She's trying to curse." I guess I can't be offended in any way...my high school athletic director nicknamed me "the ivory soap girl." Twenty years later I'm not quite so pure, but I guess I haven't thoroughly changed either. Anyway, I told my hubby that I have a plan to use natural things on the lawn... as well as slowly changing over to clover . (But the clover part is between you and me okay? I"m easing him into it.)

The spring iris bulbs, tulips, and daffodils are poking through the snow and straw mulch I laid down last year. The foxglove is already green and looking plucky. The roses bushes show green branches.

Plans for the week...digging, raking, and picture taking. Hooray!

Secrets of a Natural Gardener

My book proposal has been edited by a friend and I am busy re-working it now. My mind today is wrapped around chapter summaries. In the proposal I write about each of the individual gardeners I visited last summer. I learned so much from them. Despite the fact that I have been gardening on my own for ten years, there is so much I don't know. Learning in the garden is a never ending process. Everyone has a different method. A good gardener is always experimenting - moving things around, playing with new methods. Here are some of the "secrets" I learned last year. As I start to plan for this year's garden, I am trying to keep all of these things in mind.

- Clover lawns are healthier, easier to care for, and greener than grass lawns
- There are many sources of natural fertilizer from horse manure to sludge from the local waste plant.
- You can dry seeds from your vegetables in the sun and plant them next year.
- Elements of whimsy make a garden special.
- Seating areas encourage others to enjoy your gardens and make them more homey.
- A vegetable garden mixed with flowers encourages more wildlife and makes the garden more beautiful.
- Vegetables can be grown for food and/or for beauty.
- The garden can serve as an inspiration for all creative aspects of your life. You can mimic nature's beauty in paintings, photographs, and decorative arts. You can bring bouquets into your home or dry flowers to decorate your living space.
- The garden should serve as an outdoor room to enjoy in nice weather. Encourage this kind of living by providing decks, walkways, and sheltered spaces. Think of your outdoor space this way and create niches with different atmospheres to enjoy at different times during the day.
- Think of children when creating your space. Make the garden a place to play.
- Add bright colors on a shed, arbor, or other outdoor element to make the space more fun
- Consider all of the space in your landscape. Plant around a mailbox and in out of the way corners to make your space a real nature haven.
- You do not have to save every plant. It is okay to give up on the ones that you have trouble growing no matter where you put them in your yard.
- Phlox can survive disease free in some people's yards.

I think that I am going to order my seed starter kit from Park Seed Company today!