It Looks A Lot Better, Neighbor!

This comment was made by a man who walked by my house as I was, yet again, chopping down 'weeds'. I can't tell you how my heart sank whenever I came across a ladybug, a moth or some other insect clinging to a slender blade of . . . . grass, weed . . . ? Whatever you want to call it, I can't overstate how much better a full, intact and unmolested plant looks in comparison to a chopped down version. The man, as nice as he seemed, could not have been more wrong.

In fact, his comment was made in reference to the wild garden I had let thrive all this rainy winter long. Plants grew as they liked, including a beautiful patch of dandelions or something - sorry, I don't know the names of plants and like it that way - who - who! - liked to turn their pretty yellow faces to the sun whenever it was out. They curled up and hunched over, protectively, whenever the rain, cold and clouds came. How wonderful it was to see them living their lives and responding to the elements in which they lived.

Until I chopped them down.

One day, I noticed that my next door neighbor, not the man who made the comment, had turned toward my weed patch, and seemed to be admiring the cluster of pretty yellow flowers that grew near her carefully manicured lawn. I am sure she saw the beauty of the wild plants, living - and dying - in response to the environment. It was a particularly sunny day after a long rainy stretch, so I am sure she was charmed by their excited opening as they waved in the breeze, hosting a countless number of insects at the same time.

Until I chopped them down.

Strangely, I can't help noticing that the prettiest flowers tend to crop up in places that are either protected or disturbed, or both. Why, for example, are there clusters of purple flowers at the base of each of the posts that support the handrails on either side of my front steps? Why does the lavender resurge each spring in the secluded corner created by the meeting of the stucco-coated balcony and house wall? Why does the violet flower under the the purple flower tree (again, apologies, names escape me, I am sure not accidentally) flower around this time each year?

Apparently lupine is nitrogen-fixing. I once entertained a theory that because nitrogen-fixing activity is particularly frequent in disturbed soils, that certain forms of development, and by this I mean building activity, actually support the growth of certain species. It is the same idea I notice in studies of undersea structures of oil rigs that become coated in barnacles. Think of all of the insects, birds and rodents who - who! - thrive in the nooks and crannies of urban architecture.

So, the house does look better, the stark lines of its architecture more evident with the removal of the smudging organic matter.

But the scene as a whole, contrary to the approving words of my presumed neighbor, does not look 'a lot better'. Not by a long shot.