Friday, August 04, 2006

Wildflower Safari (just a walk out of the door)

If your garden is as wild as mine there are always naturalised weeds that are part of the landscape. Perennial friends (or foes?) that appear year after year.
I have dandelions in the grass, plantain, the horrid horses tail, bindweed, common stinging nettle, bramble in the hedge (which has got delicous blackberries growing), white and red clover, a few daisys now gone, and wild buttercups growing through the neighbours fence.Their garden is weed heaven, and they are always launching assaults on my borders and grass.
I dont believe in spraying chemicals, they would not work.They always return year after year.They are a part of the environment that i garden in.So todays photos are of flowers and seedheads that i did not cultivate.
Someone wrote a weed is a plant in the wrong place.They get mowed, cut, and dug out.But in the pictures they do have some inherant beauty.
Even self seeded volunteers could be considered weeds.Whether you remove them depends on how aggressive they are and whether you dont mind them nestling next to your cultivated flowers and plants..
Whats growing wild in your garden?

5 comments:

Hanna said...

Half my garden grows wild. I just do not have the heart to take any flower out of my garden.

I love your pics of the "unwanteds". Sometimes what is unwanted is really just out of fashion. Who knows, maybe in a 100 years dandelions will be all the rage again. Either way, my kids think they are the prettiest flowers on earth.

clairesgarden said...

nice pictures there, oriental poppys, nastursiums, calendula, all growing as 'weeds' in my onion patch. the 'lawn' has clover, buttercups, daisys, plantain and a wee purple thing I forget its name. lots of nettles and sticky-willies, they come in with the manure so I give up trying to get rid of them, the thistles I leave cos the bees love em, lots of things with little yellow flowers and lots of little pink flowery things. sometimes I take and energy spurt and pull the 'unwanted' out. I dont like bare soil. glad you are seeing beauty in these.

Silvia Hoefnagels . Salix Tree said...

Well, I'm a relaxed gardener.. I let things grow where they please .. mostly.
Our lawn is also full of flowers, such as clover, thistles, dandylions, buttercups, daisies, different daisies, ... I could go on..
My flower bed has wild poppies all over, and blue flax and nigella and stock and nasturtium and violas, seed themselves everywhere!
Wild rocket has been popping up all over as well, yummy!
I like your idea of the pics of all the wild things. That's really cool!

Kerri said...

I've been taking pics of wild flowers all summer. I'm fascinated by the sheer numbers of the different varieties. When I find a new one I haven't seen before, I'm so pleased :) I'll do a wildflower post one of these days. I leave some in my garden too. I love buttercups!

David (Snappy) said...

Thanks Hanna, Claire, Salix tree, and Kerri.I love wildflowers, i even bought a book from a sale shop to help identify the ones i see.I like weeds that are wildflowers.It means even with my garden as it is the natural fauna co exists with it..