Garden Inspirations Series – Part 8

I often hear the terms, “Weeds” and “Invasive Plants.” While I agree that it is practical to use these terms in personal situations to describe challenges we face with our lawns and gardens, it is important to acknowledge that there are no weeds in nature, and all plants can become “Invasive” if the environmental situations are favourable. Like people, animals, and insects, plants or their offspring move to and populate areas where they can flourish. For example, people migrate seeking freedom, safety, jobs, and better climates. Some people, birds, and insects go south in winter, while wineries, Asian carp, and ticks are slowly moving north all based on the changes in climate. For every soil composition and climate combination, Nature has a plant for that.

Camels and dinosaurs once lived in what is now Canada (bones have been discovered: e.g. Yukon giant camel), but the climate and soils changed over time and so did the flora and fauna (Where Do Camels Belong? K. Thompson, 2014).

Perhaps you have heard the phrase, “If you build it, they will come” (1989 film, Field of Dreams). We are good at building. We clear cut and build massive gardens of specific monocultures (e.g. acres of lettuce), as well as enormous asphalt, cement & glass cities, none of which occur “naturally, and our creations and our travel effect changes in climate (i.e. global warming).” We prepare artificial plant paradises (aka “Gardens”) with water, plant food, TLC, and weather protection – what plant would not wish to live there? Whatever changes we make, nature has a plant for that. Plants grow in the cracks of our cities, in the naked soil we plough, cultivate, or pile up, in soil compacted by our walking on it or driving over it, and in our lawns and food gardens – all of which put nature out of balance. What we call “weeds” are nature’s way of rebalancing the environment.

“Invasiveness” is actually a stronger imbalance in nature by which certain of nature’s checks and balances (e.g. insects that eat the plants; birds that eat the insects; raptors that…) are missing – temporarily. Nature will balance all eventually and the balancing may, at times, be severe (e.g., a wave of “invasive” plants followed by an invasion of insects that feed on those plants, …) until nature can achieve a biologically diverse mixture of plants, insects, and animals, all living in harmony – we the people are always the unknown factor, the unpredictable variable. We carve a town out of nature and if people leave that town because a mine or forestry business has shut down, or because of a disaster (e.g., forest fire, nuclear melt down, earthquake) nature will reclaim it. I have visited WW2 bombed out towns in northern France, as well as old neolithic and some medieval fortifications. Archeological sites I have seen in France, the United Kingdom, and China have, of course, all been reclaimed by nature.