Briefly: In praise of weed-growers | Live dates & workshops | For your stray attention | A very special reveal at the end… | Join my Patreon Community Hello, As is always the case at this time of year, my garden is 90% weeds. There’s also a fair amount of bare soil, because the dog absolutely
As serendipitous luck would have it, I found your Substack today and LOVED reading this essay. "...history charts the rise of the tidy lawn people against the weed-growers." Oh my, yes.
I recently wrote an essay that could be your piece's companion, entitled "What Weeds Can Teach Us About the New World Order." In it, I take a walk through an otherwise lovely children's book about flowers that shapes those very notions of tidiness that translate into the marginalization of "those who flourish in the cracks."
It's startling to see how our beliefs are shaped without our awareness! Thank you, Katherine, for this beautiful essay. Happy to have discovered you.
Ha!! Yes, my neighbor's exact words were, "I pulled all that grass up by hand and re-seeded it myself. It was expensive!" We've therefore opted out and are just letting the wood sorrels do their thing :'D But, if you need it, a good trick for keeping weeds away from those neighbor-garden thresholds is boiling water! Just don't pour it on anything you're hoping to keep alive....
We are our next-door neighbor’s nightmare. He removed all the weedy grass from his garden by hand and reseeded it. He feeds the birds bread crumbs instead of seeds to keep things tidy. To be fair, his garden is immaculate and he seems to find pleasure in the work... But we moved in and are the sort to check in the evenings before letting our dog out to make sure he’s not disturbing the neighborhood skunk. We feed the birds seeds they poop all over our lawn. This post (so sorry neighbor) is emboldening. I can’t help but think of Mary Oliver’s “Making the House Ready for the Lord.” 🥰
It's so funny - I wrote this after looking at my neighbour's beautful, neat garden and feeling guilty. And then I thought what it would cost me to keep my own garden that tidy. I just need to make sure nothing travels under the fence!
The tattered edges of this world do its most humane work....swooning! What a beautiful, true sentence!
Aah thank you!
As serendipitous luck would have it, I found your Substack today and LOVED reading this essay. "...history charts the rise of the tidy lawn people against the weed-growers." Oh my, yes.
I recently wrote an essay that could be your piece's companion, entitled "What Weeds Can Teach Us About the New World Order." In it, I take a walk through an otherwise lovely children's book about flowers that shapes those very notions of tidiness that translate into the marginalization of "those who flourish in the cracks."
It's startling to see how our beliefs are shaped without our awareness! Thank you, Katherine, for this beautiful essay. Happy to have discovered you.
Ha!! Yes, my neighbor's exact words were, "I pulled all that grass up by hand and re-seeded it myself. It was expensive!" We've therefore opted out and are just letting the wood sorrels do their thing :'D But, if you need it, a good trick for keeping weeds away from those neighbor-garden thresholds is boiling water! Just don't pour it on anything you're hoping to keep alive....
Oh that's an excellent tip!
Hope it helps! Worked wonders on our bindweed 🙂
We are our next-door neighbor’s nightmare. He removed all the weedy grass from his garden by hand and reseeded it. He feeds the birds bread crumbs instead of seeds to keep things tidy. To be fair, his garden is immaculate and he seems to find pleasure in the work... But we moved in and are the sort to check in the evenings before letting our dog out to make sure he’s not disturbing the neighborhood skunk. We feed the birds seeds they poop all over our lawn. This post (so sorry neighbor) is emboldening. I can’t help but think of Mary Oliver’s “Making the House Ready for the Lord.” 🥰
It's so funny - I wrote this after looking at my neighbour's beautful, neat garden and feeling guilty. And then I thought what it would cost me to keep my own garden that tidy. I just need to make sure nothing travels under the fence!
Oh I love this - and thanks for the recommendation! I will head straight over there and follow him :)