Weed or Flower or Weed??...

         You have to love springtime, especially you gardeners out there. The birds are busy. The flowers are popping. The weeds are well just being weeds. They are everywhere you look. You may spend time weeding a bed and you turn around & there’s another & another. Well you get the idea.

        So when is a weed not a weed but a flower or a flower not a flower but a weed? Well the good news is you don’t need to read gardening book after book to find out. It really just depends on you & your very own, unique perspective on your garden. For me, right now this very day – wild strawberry is a weed. It is so pervasive this spring I want to scream! The violets I have in my beds are blooming so pretty right now, however the ones that have crept into the grass, well those very same are weeds to me – this year. (I might, however, tell a friend or stranger that I have ‘naturalized’ said violets into my lawn!) Is that crazy? Well, weeds will do that to you. We devote so many hours in the spring trying to eradicate and control the uncontrollable.

Three colors of Lamium & Forget-me-knots

Beautiful weed?

I am fighting the losing battle with a weeding tool my Bestie recommended – a Japanese sickle sharp-edged blade garden handheld weeding hoe. (see pic) It’s a mouthful but it’s a game-changer as far as time spent, effort made & success rate. Crazy again? Well weeds and their flower counterpart will do that. I plan to win this year’s battle with this handy tool this year. When I walk around showing off this year’s efforts, I know my friends only see the gorgeous perennials I love so much. When I visit their gardens I only notice the beauty in their beds also. That is the sanity that replaces my crazy.

So I will consider my efforts good exercise, excellent therapy and a perspective shifter. At this very moment I have a framed photo of the above dandelion in its soft, lovely seed form on my mantel. The weed has become a flower or a work of art & definitely a perspective shifter. Why be crazy after all? Life & spring are way too short.