Shy weed of the day

Hapless weed of the day

(Adopting Jeremy Clarkson's tone...)

Some weeds fight with veg.

Others with grass. 

Some go and colonise wildspace, like a gun-totting American settler. 

This fool, however, decides to lay it's hat...

...on a pavement. 

Yes ladies and gentleman, welcome to Bristol's very own hapless weed. Probably one of the busiest thoroghfares in town, leading as it does from many a work place to the great park by the river. All it will take is a random slipped stilleto, an unco-ordinated jogger or a hungry canine to end this foolhardy attempt to seek out a riverside location. Dear oh dear...

(and not only did I get funny looks bending down to take this pic, a lady said, aww, he's taking a piccy, like I'm some 5 year old)

Weed of the day

Normal service...from my friend's back garden, a weed gone to seed.

Weed of yesterday

I was too tired to post anything after a trip to the seaside yesterday.

Here's a question, what's the difference between a weed and a wildflower? Is it that one has better PR?
This flower had grown in a wild uncultivated slope near the top of the cliff, just close enough to the path for me to take a phone snap. We had no idea what the flower was but that didn't matter, there was a lengthy discussion about whether it was actually a weed, and therefore whether it could be allowed on this blog?

One thing you can't dispute, it chose a damn good spot.

Weed of the day

After mistakenly, hopefully thinking I had elderflower in my garden I was disappointed to learn that I hadn't. This lonesome ground elder seems to have survived my subsequent cull:

Weed of the day

6:30am Cumberland Basin, Bristol

Stealing the limelight...

....apparently there's some sort of famous bridge in the background. Sadly this is not the view from my back garden, although the weed does seem to have a cousin or 50 on my turf. In a tenuous gardening link, I spent an hour out here when I should have been mowing the lawn. A gardener's work is never done, and sometimes for very good reason.

In defence of weeds

A bit like a pansy, the thought of a weed really doesn't get the back garden juices flowing.

Unlike pansies, weeds are tough. They'll survive where they're not welcome, get up every time they're knocked down and work so hard at getting nutrients they are first up at the sight of spring sunshine.

But we relentlessly cut back, spray and hoe them down. They are notoriously not welcome amongst our pre-planned arrangement of vegetables.

Every book you will ever read on kitchen gardening will insist that  keeping on top of weeding is vital to protect your veg from competition. I tried onions and garlic early on in spring for the first time and was warned to keep a vigilant eye our for these nutrient thiefs.

I'm now very attached to my hoe (that's just wrong on every level).

A treat to myself from my favourite garden centre, Riverside, (they don't pay me, perhaps they should?) it's sharp good looking and mean, and has kept my prepared soil in good nick. I couldn't conceive gardening without it again.

However, the patio has been allowed to run wild. Not deliberately of course, this man has just had to prioritise this spring and weeding the patio...well, it requires effort.

Yet leaving the weeds in peace has led to a surprising development (to me at least). They don't look too bad once they flower:

We all like flowers don't we? Unless we have hayfever. Bursts of colour under grey skies, nectar for the bees, endless variety. And to prove once and for all the maxim that weeds are just plants in the wrong place, this is actually wild rocket growing in between the cracks!

So are they actually to be admired? They're resilient, yet give them time and space they reveal a softer side, a desire to actually give us what we want.

Weeds. Just misunderstood.

(PS Thank you to Emma who took charge of my camera to snap the weeds)