Saturday 4 August 2012

Industrial weed of the day

Good morning gardeners, resurrecting an old favourite here today with my weed of the day.


Early on in my gardening life (about a year ago), I became curious about weeds, wondering what their purpose in life was. It must have been an uneventful day in my own life.


Anyway, I wrote in defence of weeds and following that I started to see them everywhere. On walls, on pavements and even in glamourous seaside locations. This week, work has taken me to Blyth in Northumberland, home of a former coal power station. It was here that I found out that weeds are also entrepreneurs, spotting times when the market is depressed and investing its own time and energy to regenerate forgotten lands.


These canny investors are bringing value to our industrial wastelands, inspiring new generations of weeds to attract winged friends, be they butterflies, bees or birds. In doing so, they help the world keep spinning, even when we stop.


So here's to my industrial weed of the day. I think I'll call her Mary:


2 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you know the name of this plant? The flowers make a really nice shape but without the leaf having troubling IDing her.

Hapless gardener said...

Hi Claire, sorry to take ages to write back. I'm afraid I don't know but will see if we can get an ID...

The Hapless Kitchen Gardener

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I only feel hapless because some people make it look easy to grow 10 ft marrows or a banquet of greens whereas my courgettes got nabbed by killer slugs and I only got one raspberry. So tips and stories from people less hapless than I are more than welcome. As a disclaimer though, none of my comments should be taken as expert advice on which you can rely! © Unless stated otherwise, and with the exception of guest content where that guest retains copyright, all photos and posts are the copyright of Tom Carpen and may not be used without permission.