Every gardener is a weeder. Gardens are created landscapes, often expressions of the individual gardener. We live in our chosen landscapes as active, responsible, participants. Gardeners are trying to create a particular look or to grow particular plants native to their area, or with ornamental value or food plants to feed themselves and their families. These are landscapes of our choice. This intention and control results in various volunteers and weeds finding their own place and so follows the need for weeding. The more one is surrounded by aggressive, well adapted weeds, the more time must be spent controlling them. While this can be significant, gardeners mostly take the work in stride, a necessity to reach their goal, a goal which may be the simple act itself. Gardening, is a way of life, a smaller scale version of farming and the management of large ‘natural areas’ with their attendant commitment, rhythms and demands. Gardening is about relationship, about our connection with the living and physical world around us. Gardening then is an act of which reflects one’s value for the living world. Non-gardeners actions may reflect the opposite, their valuing of the land’s utility, what it can do for them, granting the living world little, or no, intrinsic value.

Non-gardeners however, view the entire process as a chore. They lack the relationship, a gardener has with the green and growing world. Weeding, for the gardener, can be a meditative experience, a time away from the demands of the rest of their lives, those things they have little control over. There is purpose, value and meaning in what they are doing. The non-gardener tends to see it more as just another demand on their time. One they want to minimize. To do this they are far more likely to not participate, hire a service and utilize herbicides.

We live in a new development, an unfinished one, in which large portions are vacant and weedy, 27 of a 40 acre parcel, areas which produce many thousands of weeds and millions of seeds, constantly reinfecting our own yards and gardens. The developer, the owner of this weedy property, doesn’t see this as their responsibility…or even as much of a problem. Addressing it is nothing but an added expense for them. It is, according to them, our problem and is easily correctable through the magic of chemistry and the regular use of herbicide. They have no understanding of the complexities of a landscape and no interest in learning.