Weeds
by Paul Gruchow

"I do not keep an impeccable lawn, in part out of slothfulness, no doubt, but also because of a philosophical disregard for lawns.

"I cannot fully appreciate the challenge in a lawn, to force nature, by dint of prodigious quantities of labor, of water, of gasoline, of chemicals, to be the one thing it would never be on its own: monotonous. So it happened that my yard in late July was a social embarrassment.

"There were dandelions and goatsbeard in the grass, phlox, and columbine in the raspberry patch, sow thistles and bellflowers among the daisies. Catnip bloomed beneath the oak tree, which had begun to drop green acorns, and beneath the walnut tree, which had begun to drop green walnuts. There were immense milkweeds among the junipers. The cracks between the patio blocks were decorated here and there with tall hollyhocks, and there was a Scotch thistle of regal bearing at the end of the waterspout.

"It was all unspeakably seedy and wonderful.

"Once there weren't any weeds here. Once humans didn't know what weeds were, hadn't ever made a name for them. What was, was and had its place. Where there were roses, roses were meant to be, and were buffalo grass grew, there buffalo grass was meant to grow.

"The system survived for a thousand centuries through drought, through flood, through scorching summers, through fierce winters, through the ravages of hail and fire, and it provided food and shelter sufficient to sustain the humans who also lived on the prairie.

"When the first white man arrived, there were as many elk and bison and antelope on the prairies as there are now cattle in all the United States. These creatures existed without benefit of tending, tractors, pesticides, barns, loans from the banks, without reference to the rise and fall of the world commodity markets, unmedicated, in a universe where nothing grew except a lot of, as we might say, weeds. Where there was not a straight row of anything to be seen from one horizon to the next horizon. It was a reasonably efficient arrangement.

"Weeds: the volunteers in the places where nothing else will grow, the pioneers standing guard against scorched and eroded earth. The edible plants. The plants bearing medicines and potions, teas, and seasonings. The splashes of color on the wide landscape. The models of persistence and stamina. The sustainers, against increasing odds, of such wild creatures as remain. The memories, in their genes, of our distant history. The models for all the plants that now thrive in long rows on the grasslands.

"I thought about weeds and then went out into my weedy yard one steamy night in midsummer, observing a moment of respectful silence for the remarkable objects of my disgrace.

"If I had a visitor, I might even have offered a toast to my weeds, but it was, lucky for me, a quiet evening, and nobody found me out."


~ From the book "Journal of a Prairie Year"