Toby Buckland: growing wildflowers takes skill and knowledge, says Toby
Toby argues the case for the garden guests that defy order, and urges us all to take a walk on the wild side…
IF I had a penny for every pedantic remark I made, I’d be £436.72 better off. Jokes aside, nit-picking pedantry is a terrible trait, and why I reach for the dial when shock-jock radio phone-ins are on the wireless. One illinformed remark, and I will morph from mellow potterer to angry yelling pedant, often in shouty Anglo-Saxon.
Yesterday was a case in point, when the anchor-woman asked whether the listeners preferred ‘weeds in their garden to (and I quote) plants’. “Weeds are plants!” I shouted (£436.73) – and what exactly is your definition of a weed? (£436.74)
Lisa once pointed out that we would have less arguments if I weren’t so pedantic – she meant to say ‘fewer’ but I got the gist (£436.75). So rather than get riled, I pondered the question in the spirit it was meant.
Many non-gardeners consider weeds as free and natural versions of plants bought from garden centres – and in many respects, they are right. ‘Wildflowers’, to use a less pejorative name, will arrive of their own accord and look after themselves. But only for a short time.
Managing wildflowers requires more skill and knowledge than growing what the presenter called ‘plants’, because they are temporal. Wildflowers colonise in distinct cohorts, with fastspreaders such as bittercress and chickweeds arriving first, only to be outmuscled by deeper-rooted dandelions, oxalis and fireweed. This easy-on-theeye phase is also fleeting, as over time the blooms are soon lost to grasses, brambles and nettles.
Keeping this phase going is where the skill lies, and is achieved by mowing or pruning only when the desired wildflowers have dropped their seeds.
“Wildflowers require skill and knowledge”