We have reached the time in spring when everything goes whoosh! and the bare brown and grey days of winter start becoming a distant memory. There are so many spring flowers around, and everyone likes to gab on about tulips and bluebells and blossom, while pointedly ignoring some of our most beautiful wild flowers. Even though the road verges are covered in beautiful golden polka dots from dandelions, or frothing gently with the blooms of cow parsley, few of us appreciate ‘weeds’ because we have designated them a nuisance and an affront to our desire to control nature. And yet ‘weeds’ – really just wild flowers with a little more ambition than others – garden themselves, survive where the habitat is hostile, and brighten places rendered boring by humans. So here are five of the loveliest spring ‘weeds’ for you to learn to love:
Herb Robert, Geranium robertianum
A member of the hardy geranium family with lovely light pink or sometimes white. The best thing about this plant is its finely cut leaves which start off green but then blush to a fine wine red. It also thrives in the sort of dry shade that leaves gardeners in despair. And yet we pull it up because we didn’t plant it ourselves.
Dandelions
As I wrote in the magazine last year, there are so many reasons to love dandelions that you could only really be a confirmed grump if you insisted on continuing to hate them. They are as cheerful as daffodils, often grow in the same places as them, support far more wildlife than them, and are entirely edible for humans.
Cow parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris
Look for a white cloud of this plant filling a verge or a glade nearby – especially in May when it is most prominent. It spreads beautifully, is another fantastic food source for wildlife and even has a copper-leaved cultivar if you want something that shows you planted it (if you’re still a control freak).
Changing forget-me-not, Myosotis discolor
A strangely underappreciated relative of the popular bedding plant. This wild flower opens cream, then changes through pink to blue. It is small but exquisite and grows on rough ground anywhere.
Red campion, Silene dioica
A spring hedgerow full of these flowers is a blousy sight. One of their many upsides is that they keep on flowering for ages. There is a clump near my home that is always in bloom on Christmas Day. Close relatives White Campion and Ragged Robin, which thrives in damp ground, are just as beautiful.
Find out more
Jack Wallington’s excellent book Wild About Weeds looks at how you can incorporate wild flowers into a stylish garden design. Or Simon Harrap’s Wild Flowers is a fantastic field guide to the plants you’ll find in bloom around you.
Comments