Flower or Weed?

Since I have just spent many hours in the garden, ripping out many merry ox-eye daisies, now is a good time to debate the whole weed vs. flower issue.

Personally, I think all flowers are just very pretty weeds.

Some are just much more well behaved in the garden than others.

The humble ox-eye daisy is pretty much a weed. It will self-sow all over the place and has the potential for becoming quite the pest. I know this all too well. It had invaded my baby daylily bed and I had to banish it again. And I will have to banish it from other areas many more times before I finally hang up my trowel for good.

I just can't bare to banish it completely.

It is one of the most cheerful flowers in the garden. Brilliant white daisy flowers with that irresistible yellow center. It is a joy to behold nodding in the wind on a sunny, or not so sunny, day. And it's a wonderful cut flower. I kept a vase full of the invaders to bring inside the house for some early summer cheer.

I guess I like weeds.

I like the weeds that grow in the ditches, from the flashy orange ditch lily to the bright blue chicory flowers and the flat white clouds of queen-anne's lace. From primrose to spiderwort, they make the roadside sparkle with color. I even let some of them grow in the garden.

I like the ditch look.

The truth of the matter is that all of our cultivated flowers had their start as weeds. Even now, horticulturalist are searching every corner of the globe for more 'weeds' to bring into our gardens. They find them, we plant them. What would the world be like without Russian sage, ornamental onions, asters, and the like?

Rather dull, I think.

I'll keep my weeds.

And I'll even let them wander a bit too.