Tough as Nails

Goodbye Clint. Hasta la vista, Arnold. Get lost 007. I have a new hero…weeds!

It’s time weeds get some respect. Common as dirt. Indestructible. Permanent eradication is impossible. They scoff at Roundup. They drink chemicals for champagne cocktails. They eat lawns with impunity and laugh gardeners to scorn.

Weeds are smart. They find feasts in newly planted furrows. The fallow field chorus begins when the tiller arrives. They sing, “Mine eyes hath seen the coming of the tractor with the plow.…”

In nature, nothing rivals the resilience of weeds. Unless it’s rocks. Which is why boulders abound in vineyards. They ooze minerals, steroidal leachate stronger than ‘T’ injections. They consort with nematodes, those round earthworms that gobble grass and glorify weeds. Yes, nematodes caress all carcasses. They’ll gorge on yours one day.

Rocks and nematodes are both in a covert conspiracy with weeds. Their subversive activities seek to conquer the world. Look around. Wherever they are seen, nature will soon be reclaimed. Check out a ditch. They thrive undisturbed. Mow ‘em, torch ‘em, spray ‘em…they’ll be back tomorrow.

I sometimes dream of being a weed, not a rock or worm. Rocks are boring sloths. They just lie around like slobs, adding little and getting in the way. Reminds me of some people I know. But not weeds. No sir. Weeds, like worms and rocks, are relentless and invincible invaders. Give ‘em an inch of ground and you’ll lose the battle.

I made this picture of what appears to be a baby dandelion. Lying between the inhospitable cracks of flagstone, it appears happier than most people. That’s assuming weeds can express such emotion. It seems to smile, even gloat, sorta like the Baptist preacher holding four aces at the Friday night poker game.

We bought our first house in 1969, a cute cottage in a neatly groomed subdivision. Neighbors’ lawns were pristine and stood as straight as a Butch-Waxed flat-top haircut. Except ours. Who has time to mow a lawn while changing diapers and paying bills? So what happened? A gang of subversive dandelions took root in the weed patch we called our front lawn. I knew our tenure would be short there. I recognized immediately the negotiation value of weeds.

Mr. Frank was our neighbor. He was a weed-control fanatic. He attempted to tutor me on proper lawn maintenance and neighborhood protocol. He was obsessed with my demonic dandelions. They eyeballed his luscious Zoysia, contemplating marriage. Like a teenager in heat, they encroached on their prey by stealth, inch by inch. Which is a perfectly reasonable thing for dandelions to do. Like the little man in Moscow, exploitation of a vulnerable territory is in the nature of weeds and worms.

In retrospect, I think my knee-high dandelions drove Mr. Frank to drink. One hot day in August it all came to a head. He had to be talked down from the roof with my promise to retard the advance of dandelions. Our relationship went downhill from there when he built a wall. We soon packed up our dandelions and moved.

Weeds don’t deserve the bad rap they’re getting. Weeds welcomed Adam and his bride when they wandered outside of Eden. There is a bias in nature in favor of thorns and thistles, not cultivated gardens. That’s why I want to side with weeds…they’re the long-term winning team.

There’s a frail elegance to weeds. Walk almost anywhere…there they are, these reviled botanical survivors. I pity them. Their tiny flowers are exquisite miniatures of expensive hot-house varieties. Flowers of weeds are free.

Metaphorically speaking, weeds are like the details of life that disrupt our inordinate compulsion for orderly control. We seek ease, avoidance, amusement…weeds remind us that life’s not like that. Left to themselves, details, like weeds, will colonize all carefully crafted gardens of grace and security.

Weeds remind us that life is still wild by nature. It’s bloody, tooth and nail. The instructive virtue of weeds supports the maxim, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”

All flesh is like grass, folks. All its glory is like the flower of grass. Here today, gone tomorrow. But not weeds. Oh, if only we were as resilient as the dandelion….


Bud Hearn
March 28, 2014