WEED AND WONDERFUL

What is a weed? That which we call a plant by any other name would smell as sweet, wouldn’t it? asks blogger and YouTuber Emma Bailey

- Emma Bailey

Weeds are incredibly successful both in my garden and my allotment plot, and more than likely in yours too. They are the Olympic athletes of the natural world, fiercely competitive and super adaptable to any and all challenges thrown at them. Weeds have earned their place in our world and work hard to keep it, popping up in every nook and cranny they can squeeze themselves into.

My parents had many ways of tackling these outdoor space invaders, from weed killing sprays to intricate devices carefully designed to remove every inch of root as it ripped this heinous plant from its illegally claimed home. The place weeds were particularly unwelcome seemed to be our patio area. Tiny buds of green would emerge through the cracks between the concrete slabs, tentatively reaching their stems out as far as they could before they were sharply removed. The weed killing sprays would poison them from the leaf to the root and they would shrivel up, turn brown and then simply float away in the rain or with the wind as though they never existed at all.

THERAPY

Weeding was also seen as my mother’s preferred choice of gardening activity. In fact, until I began growing my own garden I actually thought weeding was the only gardening job ever worth doing! For hours my mother would kneel on her faded floral decorated kneeling pad and painstakingly pull up every single weed that had dared to make her flower borders its home. It was her therapy, her idea of an afternoon well spent. Lots of people find monotonous jobs such as this calming and relaxing; they allow the mind to just run away and ground you to the here and now.