GO! Smell the wildflowers… er, weeds
January 3rd, 2008 by The Right Blue
This is Bobbie from The Right Blue here — the final GSTF founder making her first post!
My husband and I spent most of December driving around New Zealand — an extended holiday. The country is lovely, and I took a lot of nature photos. It’s early summer in the southern hemisphere, so there were a lot of wildflowers everywhere. I was particularly struck by this yellow wildflower that completely covered many hillsides and decorated the landscape everywhere we went.
I tried to find out the name of this lovely wildflower. I looked in a couple of wildflower identification books. No luck. I searched on the Internet for ‘New Zealand wildflowers’ — still no luck. Then as I paged through the search results, I came across a reference to flowering weeds.
Aha!
It turns out that what seemed to me to be a beautiful wildflower was actually a weed. Not only that, it’s an invasive weed, considered to be a pest. (It’s called Gorse.)
Regardless, it still looked pretty, and even though I now know it to be a weed, it will always be a wildflower to me. This got me thinking about labels and how important they can be to our perception of things — sort of along the lines of “one man’s meat is another’s poison.”
How about you? Would your appreciation of a yellow blossom be influenced by whether you thought it was a weed or a wildflower?
I love dandelions! People in Canada & the US spend thousands to rid their yard of them … but I think they’re cheerful. Where I live now the town has finally decided to ban pesticide use on town property and once again the dandelions bloom free in the spring & summer. But people’s lawns are still free of them. As a kid I remember they were everywhere…it’s much prettier than those lawns that look like golf courses…to me anyway.
Hi Bobbie great first post!
And Drowsey Monkey, I love Dandelions to. Unfortunately in France they are called
“pissenlit”
which means “urinate in bed”! (due to its diuretic properties)
hmm. Well here is a clip showing their beauty and not the French application:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rxvtfj35xpY
Thanks for sharing Mike,
so THATS where the old wives tales of ‘touch the dandelion and you wet the bed’ comes from….
You know quite a bit about Dandeliond yourself Mike, Right? Hey it may even make a great…
title..
for..
a…
bestseller? :0)
LOL
Something perhaps linked to trees?
Thanks for the welcome, Mike — and for the video clip. As to the French application, do they make the leaves into a tea for that purpose? Just wondering…
Bobbie
Sorry that is where my knowledge ends Bobbie! My dad told me the French stuff (he lives part time in France)
I always thought dandelions were pretty, too. We saw those along the roadsides in NZ, too, and also daisies and buttercups and pink clover.
I feel like you do about manicured lawns that look like golf courses. And golf courses that are kept looking perfect through use of chemicals that then run off into the sea and disrupt things on the reef. (But that’s a whole ‘nother story…).
Bobbie
Yup - would totally change if I thought it was knocking out the natural ecosystem. Something can be outwardly beautiful and inwardly highly disastrous, a lesson we all learn at one point in our lives (don’t judge a book by it’s cover, we learn it as children).
Excellent point, V1ctorya. So a pretty flower on an invasive weed is, for you, like the wolf in sheep’s clothing?
(Gotta love all these metaphors!)
Bobbie
Welcome aboard with your first flower smelling post!!!!
Thank you, MM. Glad to be here.
Hi there Bobbie and Welcome
The Gorse Flowers are beautiful but they are everywhere..
We have them here in TAS and on the Mainland…
It kills of the native vegetation and spreads like a plague….
Critters cant eat because it makes of them sick cattle cant for the same reasons….
It is lovely to look at but burns really well…
Unfortunately it just grows right back……
They are asking farmers and anyone with it growing to remove it while they can otherwise you will find everywhere….
My Garden is a combination of flowers like Carnations and pansies but I also have wild ferns and wild orchids, daisys etc and a number of other weeds because they are so pretty….
Just because it is a weed doesnt mean it gets removed ….
When they die off I just turn them back into the soil for fertilizer… seems to work…..
AC
I’m still not 100% clear on what separates the weeds from the wildflowers. Maybe the invasiveness? At home in Hawaii we do have several kinds of wild plants which, if they get into your garden, just take over and steal all the water and soil nutrients from cultivated plants.
Based on your description, I think I’d like your garden. ;-}
Bobbie
I think you would like it too….
My vege patchis the only place I am particular about whats growing there….
I like the cottage garden look… not structured… just masses of colour….
It is fun to see what is coming up… but every so often one of my neighbours says oh thats aweed you need to pull it out…. and i go but its so pretty why? then i get this speel about what it does…
I have stated to remove the burz…. weeds which have these huge seed balls which stick like velcro to you they are the size golf balls….. and had to go my poor cats were covered in them…. must admit it was funny they had them between their back legs…… totally hilarious…. to watch…
AC
If it’s a weed you have to pull it out. If it’s a wildflower you can enjoy looking at it. Labels can make life a lot easier.
Hi Phyllis. Fancy meeting you here! ;-}
Thanks for another — and very logical — point of view on the weed vs wildflower dilemma.
Bobbie
I remember sneaking a shot or two of my Mom’s Dandelion wine when I was a kid….:):) my road to ruin started early in life…:)
I’ve never tried dandelion wine, but someone who had tried it told me it was bitter. Is that how you remember it?
Bobbie
If its a pest then it gets removed from my garden. Whether it have legs and breathes or is a humble weed. I figure its my contribution back to the habitat. Also, I do not want it contaminating my production plants.
Hi ShadowKnight -
So, when you remove said pests from your garden, do you use poison, or pull the buggers up by the roots and haul them away? (Just curious.)
Bobbie
Hi Bobbie and welcome.
When I first saw the picture - I thought to myself “that looks like Gorse Bush”.
It’s here in the UK or am I confusing it with Heather?? Anyway, we have something very similar across our wild expanses.
Glad you had a good holiday.
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan -
That’s interesting. It may well be the same plant. It’s possible that some seed pods got shipped to NZ a long time ago — intentionally or otherwise.
Bobbie
WELCOME BOBBY!!!
Happy first post & one with lots of flowers in - very apt!! Glad your travels went well - are you back in Hawaii yet?
We define weeds as flowers that grow without cultivation - i.e foxes are wild animals (not domesticated - like dogs)
We could make countless parallels between flowers and weeds in nature and some of the flower smelling posts and comments on this very blog!
Weeds & flowers both welcome :0)
So, onto your question - our appreciation of a yellow blossom wouldn’t be influenced at all if it was a weed of a prize winning flower. Either way it works for us and in its own way add beauty! In fact in some ways weeds are more appealing, more natural, more ‘ here I am so you better get used to it’.
Hmm - now you’ve got us thinking!
Hi Jim & Em -
Thanks for the welcome. Your response about the blossom appreciation hints at “a rose by any other name would l smell as sweet” (with apologies to Mr. Shakespeare).
Bobbie
Yup! Nice touch and well put!
Happy New post, year and community Bobby - welcome from Dubai and NZ is on my list of places to visit - where you on North or South Island? Where is home for you - Australia?
I beg to differ with flowers on this one - weeds arent for me - out of control where as flowers can be controlled, enjoyed and maintained but hey, each to their own.
Hi Dave -
Do keep NZ on your list of places to visit. It’s a long way from almost everywhere else in the world b ut worth the effort to get there.
We stayed on the South Island the entire time and enjoyed it very much.
No, I’m not from Oz. Home for me is Hawaii.
Bobbie
Gorgeous pic Bobby thank you.
It reminds me of Dartmoor where the gorse is rampant! I personally think it is beautiful until you get trhown off your horse into a patch and then it is the most horrible plant on this earth (for those of you who don’t know, it has very long fierce thorns).
Welcome too by the way!
Hi Mel - Where I come from we have a generic term for plants with nasty thorns: Picker bushes.
Getting thrown from a horse must be bad enough, without having to land in the picker bushes, too!
Bobbie
Cool stuff bobbie and happy first post…
Smell the flowers and smoke the weed, right?
Thanks, Fab. As to smoking this or smelling that, hey — whatever floats yer boat! ;-]
Welcome Bobbie and this is a great 1st post, it’s really got me thinking.
The only weeds I know about are the weeds my mum told me about, and I don’t think any of those are particularly destructive but still I know which ones to take up in the garden.
I guess it’s about following the crowd, or what you are taught.
How applicable to life is that?
Hi Lib - Good to know I got you thinking! (Never mind it’s thinking about weeds…)
I can’t imagine most of us have given a whole lot of thought to weeds — and, like you, I’m sure most of us know a weed from a ‘better class’ of plant based on what we’ve been taught growing up. So it is with a lot of things…
Bobbie
Great analogies folks! Us flowers LOVE it!!!
Hi Bobbie! Welcome and I love that pic you posted.
If I like or dislike something, the influence doesn’t come from whether or not it’s a “weed” or a “flower” and that’s with most things. I take it for what it is. I am not a green finger so the weeding here is left to the other half. Those Dandelions sure look pretty though.
Hi Ange - Well, now I know at LEAST one thing you and I have in common. I mostly leave the weeding to my other half as well!
Bobbie
Hi Bobbie - I saw the post from The Right Blue and had to pop in to read your stuff. Congrats on the new audience. I know they’ll love your stuff!
Aloha - Sheila
Hey Sheila! Nice to see you stop by here. And thanks so much for the vote of confidence. Hope you’ll come by GSTF regularly. Aloha to you.
Bobbie
I love this photo. Would make a great wallpaper for your desktop. Doesn’t look like a weed to me but I also love dandelions. I think the yellow and green color is beautiful.
Hi Ann - Thanks for coming over from The Right Blue to join the fun here at GSTF. And thank you for the nice comment about the photo. Yes, yellow and green do make a nice combination in nature.
Bobbie
Bobbie - the tags put on things doesn’t bother me at all - they all have some beauty to be appreciated.
Enjoy your new adventures with the flowers - the photo is gorgeous!
Kathy
Kathy - I think this is one more thing about which you and I are like-minded. Hope to see you here again, as well as at The Right Blue.
Bobbie
P.S. To all the other flower smellers — If you love gorgeous photography, do click on “kml” above and visit Kathy’s site.
Great post. Lovely scene here. Now as with the question, I would appreciate any flower simply without any care that it is a wildflower or weed.
Have a great Thursday.
Hi Zam - Good to see you here as well. Looks like you are with the rest of the group from The Right Blue who do not care that a blossom is a weed or a wildflower, but just appreciate it for itself.
Thanks for stopping by to leave a comment — both at The Right Blue and here.
Bobbie