A couple years back, I was sitting on my porch as I am wont to do in the warmer months, enjoying the breeze, the way the alfalfa in my yard swayed to and fro, while the buzzing bees rode the purple flowers like drunk bar goers clinging to a mechanical bull. The scent of lush greenery, still damp with recent rainfall, filled my nose. I reveled in the peace my time on the porch brings – the liminal space of indoor and out, human and nature.
I saw a familiar truck pull up in front of my house. From it emerged the code enforcement officer, who walked up the steps to my porch, and smiled a polite smile with a sort of sheepishness that told me he knew that I knew why he was there.
“Your weeds –” he started, as he handed me the folded notice.
“I got it.” I tried to make my displeasure only mildly evident. Usually, I’d end the interaction there, but on that day, curiosity got the better of me, so I asked, “Could you let me know which plants qualify as weeds?”
The officer then told me that any plant that can grow without human intervention is a weed. If it didn’t require planting, watering, care. If it appeared there naturally, then it was a weed.
I mulled his words over after he left while I continued watching the busy work of the bees. They’ve stuck with me since. While his words don’t reflect the city’s exact guidelines verbatim, they spoke to the flaw in how we legislate our relationship with the natural world around us.
I grew up in Colorado. I remember frequent messaging that plagued the 2000s – we were in a drought, and it was up to all of us to conserve water. Water your lawn less. Take Shorter Showers. Mow Higher. Xeriscape. As the status of water waxed and waned, the ongoing pressure of climate change hung in the air like the smoke from summer wildfires.
A time has come for a paradigm shift.
As I considered his words, I felt the breeze, pleasantly cooled by the touch of the weeds, and struggled to make sense of it. Shouldn’t we all strive to curate our little patches of earth to thrive on what nature gives them naturally, while also being habitable to us?
Later that week, I grabbed the weedwhacker. I apologized to the bees as I demolished their buffet of pollen. When the work was done, I stared at the pile of fallen, wilting leaves, purple flowers becoming duller by the minute. It didn’t take long to notice just how much hotter my yard felt as I walked through it. The hot air stayed hot.
Until, eventually, the weeds grew back. The air cooled. The bees returned. A welcome sight.
We must face the facts. A time has come for a paradigm shift to the way we view the flora and fauna we share this Earth with. While not all plants contribute to a biodiverse environment – plants whose abundance can have a negative impact on the ecosystem around them – we have maligned far too many past the point of common sense. Our current approach orients itself toward picture-perfect lawns that increase property values. This approach ignores the truth – that the greatest threat to our homes is the increased rate of natural weather phenomena as a result of climate change. One small way we can make a positive difference is through the provision of pollinator-friendly native plants that do not require an abundance of resources that are destined to become scarcer. Plants we often consider weeds.
A more sensible approach asks that we reject state-sanctioned monocultures. It requires that we invest in knowing and understanding the flora around us and commit to curating the spaces we inhabit to be in greater alignment with the world around us. Whether it’s an open patch of earth or a plant growing in response to a lack of a certain soil nutrient, nature’s inclination to fill in the gaps is a gift, a curative to erosion, weak soil and an unhealthy ecosystem.
I ask that you remember that the little corner of this Earth you tend to is a microcosm of the whole. Cultivate a future we can all believe in. May we all grow toward a biodiverse and sustainable world. May we question how quickly we are to designate a plant as a weed.
I would like to end with a poem that is included in my new book, The Weeds Grow Anyway, which releases on June 27 at GOCA’s Marie Walshe Sharpe Gallery at the Ent Center for the Arts. Free tickets are available now at GOCA’s website.
i wanna grow
the kind of grass
we can believe in.
the kind of grass that is
wild west and cactus spike.
bur and bristle.
the kind of grass that needs
only what the sky has to offer.
if we are bound to die
let it be a part
of the endless wild.
the fly in the web.
the pine swarmed by aspens.
the mouse swallowed by snake.
not the butterfly wing
in the lawnmower.
the weeds pulled
at the root.
the throat snapped
forever shut.
let the grass grow
as the rain lets it.
let animals come
make homes in the rustle.
let dandelions be
without ever calling them weeds.
they will grow anyway.
they always do.
