{"id":2340,"date":"2008-03-28T08:30:32","date_gmt":"2008-03-28T14:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/gardenlog\/?p=2340"},"modified":"2017-07-20T10:15:23","modified_gmt":"2017-07-20T15:15:23","slug":"weed-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/garden-design\/weed-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"The Weed Garden, My Garden Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nAt Diana’s<\/a> yesterday, with Bonnie<\/a> and Pam<\/a>, stuffing welcome packets for the Garden Bloggers Spring Fling<\/a>, I realized how comparatively few garden plants I have in my garden. I decided I’d better set expectations for any Spring Fling visitors who are stopping by before Friday’s dinner at Matt’s El Rancho. (Anyone on the Friday dinner list is invited. Let me know if you need directions.)\n<\/p>\n

\nNoted Austin landscape architect, Ivan Spaller<\/a> said of me and my garden, “[She] spends her days toiling away in a weed-infested garden…”\n<\/p>\n

\nAnd so I do. My garden is big and my budget is small. So I rely heavily on weeds to fill in the empty spaces.\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Zanthan
\nVisitors are often drawn to the bright fleshy leaves of the false dayflowers, Commelinantia anomala<\/i>, only to recognize them close up and say in disappointment, “Oh. It’s that.” But I love how fresh and crisp the foliage looks and who can resist a flower with a face like this?
\n\"Commelinantia\n<\/p>\n

\nI also rely heavily on the false dayflower’s cousin, the spiderwort. It was in full bloom when I first saw this house and, in part, is what made me fall in love with this place. I try to confine it to the mini-woods but it insists on popping up in the meadow, the lawn, and the vegetable garden.
\n\"Commelinantia\n<\/p>\n

\nThe cilantro, which I grow to eat, has taken over the meadow. It bloomed a month before the larkspur this year and makes an excellent filler.
\n\"Zanthan\n<\/p>\n

\nI do manage<\/strong> my garden of weeds, edit it. In order to give it some semblance of a garden, I think it’s important to clump like weeds together–a drift of cilantro, or baby blue eyes, or spiderwort. I will pull the lone larkspur out of a clump of Love-in-a-mist. I transplant self-sown plants where I want them rather than where they’ve come up. Imposed order is what differentiates the garden from nature. And yet, in a wild garden one must have a light touch. I was made very happy when two different people asked me if my violas had self-sown (no) because they were not planted in the typical straight lines of bedding out plants.\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Zanthan\n<\/p>\n

\nI think I’ve always been guided, unwittingly, by a poem I wrote when I was seventeen–before I ever imagined myself a gardener.\n<\/p>\n

I am a garden wild;
\nGrowing thriving,
\nReaching leafy green tentacles
\nIn curious search.
\nI am, they say, haphazard, untamed,
\nExisting most improperly
\nin a world full of gardeners.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Zanthan
The baby blue eyes took over the back border, smothering everything in their path. I find them beautiful in their own right and let them have their way.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[55,186,199,201,259,450],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2340"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5560,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340\/revisions\/5560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}