In Defense of Weeds

I'm not talking about pot. 

I love my yard. I love being able to work in my yard. Perhaps my pleasure in the yard has to do with my heritage of farmers. Regardless, I enjoy the effort to tend a green lawn. 

My mother spent countless hours every week when the weather warmed nurturing and discipline her lawn into an unblemished field of green hybrid bermuda grass. She fertilized the grass, sprayed for disease, and meticulously hand plucked any weeds that squeezed they're way in; my mother's dedication to manually removing lawn intruders with the point of a screwdriver seemed legendary to me as a child, later reminding me of Buddhist monks that make art with colored sand. Our lawns were beautiful green, my mother's verdant masterpiece. 

When I bought my first house the yard was a veritable tabula rasa, nothing but an expanse of dirt covered in straw with grass seed underneath (the common planting method for where I live). Looking at the expanse I proclaimed, "Thick green grass shall I have!" I was wrong, not just because it didn't happen but because that's not a very good goal. 

Having a thick green lawn is fine, but I erred by wanting to replicate what my mother had achieved. Aside from taking hours to achieve that I don't have to spare, her craft, a solid, homogenous sprawl of grass has negative ecological and psychological impact—I might be overstating the latter.

Here's the ecological bit on the perfect, weed-free lawn: Weeds provide biodiversity. Disease spreads fastest where bio homogeneity exists. A fungus, bacteria, or insect will decimate an entire hedge of one shrub species hopping from one plant to the next; so too with grass. A few weeds or even the mix of grass species decreases the likelihood of that happening. Granted, I'm a sort of sloppy gardener, but I have not had disease issues with my lawn whereas my mother often had to watch out for issues. Maybe the reason is related to our grass species, but I'm willing to bet the random blend of grasses caused by my patching efforts and the presence of weeds drastically reduces the chance of a grass disease taking hold.

A flattering view of my lawn

That's a nice science argument for calming down about weeds, but here's the one that means the most to me: Learn to enjoy what you have. Here's this lovely shot of my lawn from just last week. It's an enjoyable rug of green, but there's at least couple types of grass in there along with some weeds and plenty of clover

I should add that I do not consider clover a true weed, rather a beneficial. Clover is a legume (in the family of beans, peas, and peanuts), which means it grabs nitrogen (the element needed for green) from the air and not the ground, so the grass doesn't compete with clover for nutrients. Also, clover fills in and shades bare or thin spots to help young grass seedlings stay shaded and moist, and it keeps back other weeds (a little). Most importantly, it's green.

When I look at my lawn I try to enjoy what I have, something green and soft to look at and walk on. I could obsess over the purity of grass in the lawn, but I choose to enjoy it for being green. The money, stress, and (most importantly) time I could put into making my lawn look like a Scott's commercial would be taken away from other things.

If you stare at it, the patchwork quality comes out. Eh.

"But I want a field of green like you would find in nature!" Then even my lawn is too homogenous; nature has weeds and variation, that's part of its beauty. Here's another view of my lawn, the hodgepodge and weeds stands out a little better. Again, it's green, so I'll take it.

I make peace with the weeds and accept the lawn for what it is. Don't get me wrong, when some neighbors had their lawn sodded last year I was as green with envy as the emerald carpet we stood on. The weeds do sort of annoy me, mocking my hope of green perfection, but through learning to accept their presence I let go of the insistence on things being as I imagine them rather than as life presents them.