Reassuring Weeds & Slugs

Image by Unsplash

Six weeks of nursing a sprained ankle have amplified my gratitude for the ‘little piece of earth we call our own.’ So this month's nature notes are inspired by our garden.  

Due to our neglect, weeds and pests are rampant, especially brambles and bindweed, slugs and snails. It can be a struggle for me to appreciate the garden in a season of ‘unintentional rewilding’ but I've been trying to channel my inner Prince Charles. Oops, apologies to HRH, King Charles. 

Several years ago my mum treated me to a visit to his garden at Highgrove, where weeds are left to thrive alongside the cultivated plants. After all, a weed is just a plant in what we consider to be the ‘wrong’ place. Likewise, a slug is a creature where we don't want it.  

Amidst my concern about biodiversity loss, especially the shrinking number of insects, I take comfort from nature’s alacrity to reassert its dominance in our garden when David and I are inactive for a while. Nature is resurgent. 

It’s tempting to look at current climate issues and reach simplistic a conclusion - the environment is broken and humans need to fix it. But I have some nagging fears about whether the technological solutions on offer are any more sustainable than the ‘old’ technologies that have contributed to the crisis? Are electric cars truly any more sustainable than fossil fuels, for instance? Is cloud-seeding safe? I’m nervous that the continuing effect of human overreach, combined with the ‘law of unintended consequences,’ may lead to further harm to the environment we’re trying to ‘fix.’  

I’m no expert and I certainly have more questions than answers, but my gut feeling on green issues is for incremental moves towards long-term sustainability, rather than dramatic interventions. And perhaps I’m naïve, but I take comfort from the weeds and slugs in my garden – whenever David and I have a break from our efforts to control our little patch of earth, Nature seizes the upper hand.