Weeds

Today I started on a new project, to create a weed eradication plan for our company. I need to develop a plan / management strategy to prevent the weeds from taking over our soil and to remove them if they become a problem. I have not started on that yet, because just the thought of it had me wondering all morning. Weeds are created weeds; they weren’t beautiful flowers, with potential to be planted in someone’s pristine garden and made some wrong choices which made them the weeds of the Plantea kingdom. They are a menace to the rest of the plants. They use more water than they are worth and they invade areas where they aren’t welcome.

The New shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines a weed as an herbaceous plant not valued for use or beauty, growing wild and rank, and regarded as cumbering the ground or hindering the growth of superior vegetation... Applied to a shrub or tree, especially to a large tree, on account of its abundance in a district... An unprofitable, troublesome, or noxious growth.

So weeds are just plants not valued for their beauty and use? Some of them do actually have uses. Why is some vegetation superior to others? Why has it been created with superiority? Should all plants not be equal? Should we not value each plant for what it has to offer, even if it is just a little different, maybe a bit poisonous or troublesome?

The Britannica Encyclopaedia has this to say about weeds: 

“A weed, is any plant growing where it is not wanted. Ever since human beings first attempted the cultivation of plants, they have had to fight the invasion by weeds into areas chosen for crops. Some unwanted plants later were found to have virtues not originally suspected and so were removed from the category of weeds and taken under cultivation. Other cultivated plants, when transplanted to new climates, escaped cultivation and became weeds. The category of weeds thus is ever changing, and the term is a relative one.”

Thus one persons weed can be another person’s superior plant species. We need to start making sure that we don’t classify weeds solely based on our own opinion. It is a relative term and the plants involved can be hurt in the process. Make sure that what you see as a weed isn’t someone else’s rose. It is all just a matter of perspective. Learn to tolerate.

Having said that, I need to start on my weed eradication plan... oi.