What is a Weed?
If you ask somebody what a weed is, you may get a pretty emotional answer. A lot of us think of weeds as noxious killers that take our food away from us. A pestilence.
At its essence, weed just means a plant that is growing where it's not wanted.
In my project, Asian and European plants are weeds. I may later expand the category to native plants that grow too much or too fast, keeping the other plants from thriving.
What amuses me right now is that tree saplings are weeds for the moment. I'm pulling up a ridiculous number of tree saplings. I'm not very good at tree identification, so I don't know who these are. But I suspect they are children of the oak.
I also found a little dog fennel today, which pisses me right off. Dog fennel is also not native. And it grows at a crazy rate. If you don't pull it when it's small and tender, it turns woody and really difficult to get rid of. I found four of these where the hedges had been. I was too mad to remember to get a picture.
July 01, 2023