When we first attempt to create a wild garden, how impatient we are with the weeds, only to realize later that many of them have their place.
It is not always easy to decide what is a weed or wildflower.
I remember how the jewelweed used to infuriate me.
I pulled it up by the roots and paid my grandchildren to help me clear it from the land. Then as the pines grew and the ferns came in, we found it made a wonderful ground cover in the woods.
We should be particularly grateful to the jewelweed for providing, near at hand, an antidote for poison ivy.
Beloved Weeds
Two other humble but beloved weeds at wildflowers are the chicory or sucory, and the bouncing bet, Saponaria Officinalis.
In August, when the first yellow heaves of the elms are starting to fall, the eye is caught by the sky blue color of the succory and the pale pink of the bouncing bet, growing together in masses along the roadside.
Another great favorite of my roadside flower is the tansy Tanacetum vulgare. It is far more restrained in habit than the goldenrod or joe-pye weed, and I think it should have a place somewhere among our wildflowers.
Its beautifully cut green leaves are aromatic when pressed in hand, and its yellow button flowers remind us a bit of the button chrysanthemum.
Old World
The Old World put great faith in the medicinal powers of the tansy; thus, the early settlers brought it with them when they came to this country.
Tansy tea was supposed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to. Cole’s Art of Simpling, published in 1656, assures maidens that tansy leaves laid to soak in buttermilk for nine days make the complexion very fair.
44659 by Ruth D. Grew