Trailing Bellflower, Herb Robert, Yellow Corydalis and Green Alkanet

Dear Readers, there is a house nearby which has been having extensive work done inside. As a result, the front garden has been left to itself, and I’ve been watching with some interest as the local ‘weeds’ move in, forming a miniature and no doubt temporary garden. The selection above is basically a top four of East Finchley’s ‘weeds’ – they all seem to love disturbed, clay soil, and not picky about whether they’re in the sun or not.

There’s a fine crop of what I suspect is American willowherb, which is literally bursting through the concrete. Never underestimate the combination of a determined little plant and lots of time. There are a lot of different small willowherbs, all less showy than the Great Willowherb in my garden, or the magnificent Rosebay Willowherb, but still attractive in a small, pink way.

And it’s not just ‘weeds’. There is the most magnificent antirrhinum, which is frequently visited by bumblebees.

And a single rose has burst through too, along with some canna lilies. I’m not sure how long they’ve been here, but they haven’t given up just yet.

The single rose

Canna lilies

And just in case you think that these plants aren’t good for wildlife, there’s a leaf-cutter bee feeding on one of the trailing bellflowers.

So, why am I banging on about this one small, neglected front garden? In a way, it’s a miniature ‘brownfield site’. These are ex-industrial, recreational or residential spaces which are thought to be of less value than, say, a field doused in fertiliser and biocides, with depleted, compacted soil. ‘Brownfield sites’  are often cited as places to build upon, without any recognition that these scrappy areas can often be more  biodiverse than the ‘countryside’, and that they often have a lot of value to the people who walk, birdwatch and explore there.

Plus, when you really look at our most disregarded weeds, they often have a whole raft of interesting uses and folklore. They have been intertwined with us for centuries. I remember playing with the flowers of the antirrhinums (or ‘snapdragons’ as we called them) as a child, ‘biting’ one another’s noses with them. I remember wrinkling up my nose at the smell of herb Robert, with its odour of warm rubber tyres. but more than anything, I am amazed at how, having probably only known the names of a dozen ‘weeds’ before I started this blog, I can now recite a positive poem of plant names as I walk down the road. They seem to me like friends now, as much part of the community as the cat across the road, or indeed her owners.

I have also, over the ten years of the blog, seen some ‘weeds’ come and go. Welsh poppies are now pretty common, and a few weeks ago I noticed my first gallant soldier. Weeds can be ubiquitous, but they can also be extremely local. I look forward to seeing what will do well as climate change brings more unpredictability.

And finally, a poem, by Gerard Manley Hopkins. ‘Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet’, indeed.

Inversnaid

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.