You must log in or register to comment.
I swear I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve talked to too many people who almost physically couldn’t comprehend that weeds are “plants that you personally consider undesirable in a given situation”. I’ve watched their brains strain and creak under the idea that weeds are a useful, per-person per-scenario fiction and not a static clade of plants that exist to fuck up lawns and gardens. To the extent they ask follow-up questions, it’s trying to understand how it’s still a rigid group – like they think they’ve been told some niche, pedantic science trivia and not the literal and only definition of a weed.
My goto is explaining how a plant can in certain situations be a weed and sometimes don’t. For example in a farm which farms clover seeds the grass is the weed! In a farm which farms grass seeds the clover is a weed! Same in agriculture, stray plants from the previous years crop often appear as a weed in the current years field.
I didn’t get into specifics before, but even concrete examples as a backup have failed. They’ll listen and understand the example on a narrative level (“this is a weed to Person 1 and here’s why, but not to Person 2 and here’s why,”), but every fibre of their soul is clearly trying to ask indirectly: “okay, but how are weeds defined then?” It’s like you’d think they’re trying to square a scientific disagreement between Persons 1 and 2; it’s like they’re trying to figure out who was right.
What’s especially crazy to me too is that this has never, I think, been in the context of me challenging what they consider weeds and suggesting they reconsider; it’s just come up sometimes. I’m handing them the absolute, irrevocable right to keep their categorization of weeds exactly the same, but they act like a cartoon character trying desperately not to remember they’re walking on air.
Yeah, my mum is like that. She’ll readily tell you that you can put dandelion into salad, but also considers it a weed.
She’s also always very concerned what the neighbors think of our lawn (not that she ever asked), and one time she told me we had to mow the lawn, because dandelions are growing on there. When I told her that dandelions are flowers and that I think flowers look better than bland green, you could really see that she never even thought about it this way.
My dad once told me about a local man when he was a kid who made dandelion wine (I’ll have to ask him next time, but I think part of the story is that he was older and paid local kids to gather the dandelions for him).
Still looked like his brain was falling down the stairs when I told him what weeds are. The utility doesn’t matter; it’s a weed because it proliferates easily on barren, manicured turf, and while you’re welcome to feel however you want about the weeds, they’re weeds all the same. Not even a spoken argument by him; you could just tell from the follow-up discussion that this is what was going on up there.
Maybe teaching the difference between invasive and native would help?
Well, many non-natives are not invasive and some natives are invasive. Right plant, right place.
There’s a weed garden in Göttingen, Germany. They try to preserve “weeds” that have almost been eradicated. Though the last time I was there it looked pretty barren so I think it’s not doing so well.
I’m so happy my yard is having dandelions again. There’s a neighbor down the street that is…well his lawn is a uniform thick plush green from all the chemicals. Mine is a lovely scraggly mess of slowly dying grass with some native ones in there. But his spraying eventually leads to the dandelions all dying all over (other people also spray but just not as much) :(
Nice!!
