Wednesday 24 June 2009

Weed or Flower?

I love this time of year but it always leaves me feeling a bit confused.

The field behind us is full of horrible yellow flowering weeds (Hawks Beard I think) whose seed heads are blown into our garden and totally wreck it. This really annoys me but at the same time when I step out of the garden and into the field I love seeing the orchids and other less invasive wild flowers that co-exist with the annoying ones and I love the fact that it provides a habitat for butterflies and ground nesting birds.



Yesterday I pulled out loads of these yellow flowering plants and other weeds from the garden, got covered in stinging nettle stings and hurt my back trying to pull up copious wild poppies from the rockery. Then I went for a walk in the fields to the side of us and spent ages trying to capture the beauty of fields covered with the same poppies I'd been pulling out of the garden.





I think there is a saying that, 'a weed is just a flower in the wrong place'. After seeing the poppies I'm so pleased there are still some 'right places'.

2 comments:

Midmarsh John said...

What a gorgeous sight the field of poppies makes.

Helen said...

I agree John and although they are one of the most common wild flowers they are still one of my favourites.