Some are less easy to love, like bindweed, but it is a source of pollen for insects, and a food source for the convolvulus hawk-moth. The bramble’s thorns and lolloping ways act as a protective home to the songbirds trying to hide from the cat, to say little of the flowers, buzzing with bees and other pollinators in midsummer, and the berries we greedily pick. Theirs is the business of aesthetics, often through control and manipulation, so for there to suddenly be a chorus of them purposely using weeds as a design tool, well that is a change indeed.īut what of the beastly ones I hear you cry? Everyone can learn to love some daisies in their lawn, but docks, brambles, bindweed and dandelions – can you learn to love this lot? View image in fullscreen ‘Weeds protect, build and feed our soil system as they grow.’ Photograph: Linda Nylind/The GuardianĮcologists, naturalists, wild gardeners, rewilders and regenerative growers have all been singing weeds’ praises for some time for all these reasons. Though much-maligned, weeds protect, build and feed our soil system as they grow. Annual weeds are often the first flush of protection for bare soil, their quick lifecycles timed perfectly to protect the critical biologically active top layers of soil so necessary for life on Earth, so easily damaged and eroded by weather if left bare. Many perennial weeds have deep root systems that break up compacted soils and mine the subsoil layers for minerals and nutrients, depositing them on the soil surface as their leaves die back. Too often this breeding for our eye or our tastebuds is to the detriment of the wider food web. They are a buffet that is always open and readily available to invertebrates, unlike more highly bred plants that have lost their nectaries and pollen sources to larger or multiple petals, deeper scents or different colours. Weeds, as the RHS notes, are resilient by nature they often flower repeatedly, whatever the weather, and will grow in poor, thin, baked, compacted and made-of-pure-rubble soils. They flower at the right time of year to be important sources of pollen and nectar for pollinators, and their leaves, roots and seeds act as larval food for other insects. Many of our weeds are intricate parts of the food web. This championing of the humble weed by the RHS comes in the face of mounting evidence that weeds are doing far more than taking up resources – they are giving back.
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