A weed is…

Harvesting seeds at the end of a day of weeding.

Complete the saying: A weed is……

I am sure there are different versions but mine is: A weed is a plant growing in the wrong place!

There are several more if you check on google, such as: A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, growing where it conflicts with human preferences, needs, or goals.

Or: weed, general term for any plant growing where it is not wanted.

Identifying Weeds!

The problem is, identifying the weeds especially when they are small can be a bit of a minefield.  When I was volunteering at the Inner Temple, I was constantly impressed by the gardeners’ ability to look a tiny seedling and know what it was. This of course is very important if your method of gardening is to encourage self-seeders. There’s no point encouraging them and then weeding out all the seedlings!  However this takes knowledge, borne of observation. 

Tuesday is the community gardening day at the Museum of Homelessness. Jess asked if I would help weed the sensory bed. “You’ll know what’s a weed” she said. I am touched by her confidence but don’t share it!

Still Joe and I set off on mission to weed. We were a bit hampered by a lack of trowels but also as I looked at the bed, I thought, we are hampered by a lack of knowledge.  Many of the plants aren’t labelled and this is a place where many are new to gardening, so if you don’t know one plant from another, you are not going to feel confident to start pulling some up! 

So I suggested to Joe that we should have a change of plan and actually start by identifying and labelling what we have.  It turns out we also need plant labels but Joe headed off on a mission and came back with a handful of lollipop sticks and a sharpie from the art space. Sorted! We set to work, some plants I did know and others I identified with the aid of a phone and Joe wrote the labels. 

We have lots of the roast beef plant: Iris foetidissima - have you ever snapped a leaf and had a sniff, do try it.  I feel rather sorry for this iris which is also known as the stinking iris, gladdon, Gladwin iris or stinking Gladwin. I like the smell of roast beef! It is a British native and though the flowers are small it has stunning deep orange/red seeds in the Autumn. The birds love them. I think that’s how I ended up with one of these plants in my garden.

We have mint and rosemary and oregano - all brilliant for the cooks who, in a tiny kitchen, rustle up meat, vegetarian and vegan options for everyone who comes to spend the day in the garden.  However if you are going to pick and use those herbs perhaps you don’t want a Black Nightshade growing in amongst them?  Solanum nigrum is described by Wildfood UK as a poisonous member of the Solonacea family that includes potatoes and tomatoes but also deadly nightshade. Ingestion causes vomiting, diarrhea, sweating. No this plant/weed does not have a home in our sensory bed.

A sensory garden would seem to be about plants you can smell and touch so a grass called Lagurus Ovatus, common name hare’s tails or bunnytails seem perfect. However a very spikey Bull thistle - Cirsium vulgare (vulgare meaning common) right on the edge of the path seems unwise - perhaps it could move to the back? I don’t want to deprive the insects of its incredible flowers but would agree with this quote in an article from someone who took on the challenge to study it closer

“The ubiquitous thistle flamboyantly discourages close investigation. Almost the entire plant is covered in very sharp spiny bristles that easily penetrate all but the most sturdy materials.”

So the idea is that we will start to make a plan of the plants in our sensory bed. Photographs can show the plants and the ‘weeds’ so that further down the line, folk that Jess sends out to weed the bed will be armed with some information. I am sure more weeds will pop up and we’ll need to keep researching but that is the joy of this community garden - we’re all learning.

I think our document will have the Latin names of the plants and the common names. But we may also have the Polish names. A chance comment about Nepeta racemosa ‘Walkers Low’ also being known as catmint led to a hilarious conversation with another member of the community, as we ran between the plants comparing the common English and Polish names. Gardeners may not always want to use the Latin names of plants but you can so see why this is the only way to be sure you are talking about the same plant!

The afternoon ended with the joy of seed collection. We had identified and labelled some tiny nigella plants but then came across a huge patch of nigella (Love-in-a-mist) by the railings. The plants were full of seed pods.  Joe went to hunter gather an envelope and together we had the fun of popping the pods and collecting the seeds.

We didn’t weed a big patch of the sensory bed on Tuesday but I hope it was a step towards imitating those Inner Temple gardeners with their powers of observation, learning what you have and how it grows.

And when I got home, I searched on the bookshelves for a book called: The Botanical City. A busy person’s guide to the WONDROUS PLANTS, you can find, eat and grow in the CITY. The introduction says that the book owes everything to the botanist, William Curtis (1746-1799) and his masterpiece, Flora Londinensis. This was a detailed description of more than 430 plants found within 10 miles of London and it took him most of his adult life and nearly ruined him in the process. It became so all-consuming that Curtis resigned his position as Director of Chelsea Physic Garden. The authors of the Botanical City have chosen to: ‘explore and celebrate the most exciting, beautiful, useful and extraordinary plants that you can expect to find on kerbside and roadside, not only in London, but in many temperate cities around the world’. Black nightshade or Solanum nigrum is in the ‘Kill Chapter’ - glad I weeded it out!

In the UK we have a bank holiday which might be a chance to catch-up on some episodes if you are driving around or pottering in the garden. If you are already thinking about and planning for next year, have you thought about peonies? Take a listen to this episode. Autumn will be the time to order bareroot ones and there’s currently plenty to chose from on Claire Austin’s site. They will be delivered in October.

I am loving my new Corokia which features in this episode. It was a gift from Mona Aboud and her passion for New Zealand plants is infectious. We also have Fiona Eadie in the episode - author of the 100 best native plants for New Zealand gardens.

Have a lovely weekend

Sally

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