One Man’s Weed
Attempts to stand too firm against natural elements…can lead to frustration. It is ultimately misguided.
We may mistake a flower for a weed, cutting out that which, if we let it, could become an object of our delight.
Note: I’m not unaware of the possible interpretations of the title of this post. It’s fine. My apologies to the mellow demographic lured to the site under false pretenses.
Landscaping as a tenant is a balancing act.
I want to live in a place that has lovely lawns, pretty flowers, green hedges, and shady trees, but investing too much time or money into such things is not at all practical when you do not own it. I’ve found that the best way to manage the compulsion to cultivate with the transience of a lease is to go native, go slow, and work with what is already there.
My broken pond may be the ultimate expression of this philosophy, but a close second is my relationship with a stubborn little ground cover common to central Texas, the pedantically named horseherb (Calyptecarpus vialis). It’s also known by the more evocative and charming name straggler daisy… which sounds like an adorable but lazy character on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
Straggler daisy is a nemesis to the Texas gardener who wants a high degree of control. If it arrives unbidden in your lawn or flowerbeds, you will struggle to vanquish it. From what I understand, it resists most attempts at eradication short of severe drought and frost, both of which make it vanish until rain and milder temperatures send up sprouts, seemingly overnight. It is more temperamental than is desirable in most ground cover but also ever-present. You see it popping up in lawns all over Austin. It was everywhere when I moved in, overtaking the patchy, water-wasting Augustine but also not quite consistent enough to look like it was planted on purpose. I’d never seen so much of it in one place so I snapped some photos and headed to the nursery, assuming I was in for a protracted battle with a lawn full of weeds. The initial goal was respectability, not beauty. I didn’t want to end up the subject of an angry post on Nextdoor.
We have an abundance of natural gardeners and nurseries in town and one of them gave me some sage and prudent advice: “You know, just go with it. It’s good for the deer, doesn’t need as much water, and brings in butterflies and other pollinators. Just because some people treat it like a weed that doesn’t mean it is one. A lot of people think Lantana is a weed but we sell it and plant it on purpose. One man’s trash (weed) is another man’s treasure (flower).”
Two years of watching the straggler daisy’s growing cycle and I can report that it has conquered. It grows thick between the stepping stones in the back yard but is easily pushed aside to maintain a path to the pond. When fully grown, it has a rolling, hillock-y appearance that is nothing like a normal lawn. You can mow it flat but I like the scalloped unruliness of it, which is closer to how it looks growing wild in the Texas hill country.
You can let it be for weeks at a time, which feels odd. No worries, it won’t become the sort of lawn that draws a citation from the city. It stops at a reasonable height, with gentle, mounded waves of yellow flowers and heart-shaped leaves. In the evenings, it’s a buzz with honey bees, red wasps, and tiny butterflies. We’ve seen fireflies in these mild September temperatures.
In August, during the worst of the heat and drought, it vanishes. I don’t try to keep it, as water is precious and I know this barrenness is a temporary state, even part of the magic of straggler daisy. One good rain this year brought an entire lawn of tiny sprouts the next day. Two weeks later, it looked like we had been visited by wood elves.
Attempts to stand too firm against natural elements that are not in our control can lead to frustration. This is as true in our communities and relationships as it is when we are stewards of a garden we do not own. I’ve witnessed people try to control everything and everyone in their circle, as a means of alleviating their stress or anxiety. It is an understandable reaction to growing responsibility and the discordant feeling of being around people who are not like us. But it is ultimately misguided. We may mistake a flower for a weed, cutting out that which, if we let it, could become an object of our delight.
