Why can't weeds be friends

Last month at This Garden is Illegal, Hanna blogged about purslane, calling it "one of the prettier weeds that grow in my yard." Not only is it a good-looking, low-maintenance ground cover, it is also edible and nutritious. One commenter (the blog has since been moved and some comments were lost in the change so you'll have to take my word for it) asked the rather obvious question (and of necessity I paraphrase), "Do I have to pull it?"

I will confess that I leave some weeds in my yard intentionally. When I am not being lazy, I do pull the thorny or invasive weeds, but some of the best color in my young landscape comes from a few volunteers. Last year, the only plant (see why I call it a zeroscape?) in the front yard was a volunteer aster of some sort that grew to be about 3 feet tall and wide. Despite receiving no care, it was covered in yellow flowers from early summer until it was uprooted by wind in the fall.


In the background of the photo above are buckwheat (I think) volunteers, and in the foreground is a volunteer prickly pear from my parents' yard. In this same area, there is also an ocotillo volunteer from my parents' place. The photo below shows another wildflower that has just started blooming. This one is regularly driven over and tolerates the abuse just fine; there are not many more horticulturally-approved plants that could pull that off.


In central Texas at springtime, normally deserted roads teem with slow-moving and even dangerously parked vehicles filled with people searching out beautiful displays of wildflowers. After taking in the spectacle, many visitors return home and, rather amusingly, mow their own yards. What they find beautiful in nature is deemed unacceptable for their own backyards. With less work and expense than maintaining a traditional lawn, many of the people that go "wildflower peeping" could have the same beauty in their own landscape. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center offers a how to guide for this very purpose: Wildflower Meadow Gardening (a PDF file).

Only weeds grow like weeds, and sometimes they can be a good choice. I might even call them friends.