Wait, Weeding IS Gardening

I'll never forget talking one day with a well-known local landscape designer when he said something to the effect that he didn't think of it as "weeding" but as "gardening." Ignoring the fact that we were at that moment watching his gardener weed, I still thought it was a great idea, philosophically. And the next time I found myself weeding, I definitely had that thought running through my mind.

You know, he's right. If gardening is indeed about tending to the earth, part of that is about plucking and preening.

Weeding is a bit like exercising - once you get started it's actually really great but it's the getting started that can be hard sometimes. The process of weeding brings you into intimate contact with your garden and all of its goings-on.

You are basically forced to plop yourself in one place for a while on your hands and knees, poking and pulling at weeds. And part of that process is distinguishing unwanted plants from those you like. You get to see things you might have tra-la-la-ed past if you weren't looking closely.

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny crisp day in Austin, and it was high time to try to control this awful cool season grass that invades our gardens.

While I was pulling that stuff up (for hours), I discovered that the Mexican plum (Prunus mexicana) has sent up a runner. Mexican plums are wonderful ornamental trees, but in the wild they form thickets. I never expected to see mine try to get to it's natural state. I also found a juniper seedling undoubtedly dropped by a bird.

I listened to a flock of cedar waxwings alight in the bare pecan branches overhead, squeak for a time and then flutter off to their next destination.

Gardening is more than just the planting of plants and the quaint snipping of flowers here and there. It's getting your hands dirty and muscles sore. It's listening and watching and smelling. It's slowing down to observe. It's fabulous.