• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Shop
    • Gift Vouchers
    • Binoculars and Scopes
    • View Cart
    • Your Account
      • edit-account
      • edit-address
      • lost-password
  • Wildlife Tours
    • Discover Wildlife Weekends
    • Guided Wildlife and Birding Walks
    • Custom Wildlife and Birding Tours
  • Schools
  • Books
  • News
    • Irish Wildlife News
    • International Wildlife News
    • Wildlife Events
    • Wildlife Press Releases
  • Articles
    • Blog
      • Birding
      • Wildlife Photography
      • Whales and Dolphins
      • Mammals
      • Wildlife Podcasts
        • The Calendar Road
      • Biodiversity
      • Wildlife Calendar
    • Species Profiles
      • Amphibians
      • Birds
      • Fish
      • Fungi
      • Invertebrates
      • Mammals
      • Plants
      • Reptiles
    • Feature Articles
      • Choosing Binoculars
      • Birding for Beginners
      • How to watch whales and dolphins
      • How to watch Basking Sharks
      • Wildlife travel
    • Wildlife Portfolio
    • Wild Wide Web
    • Reviews
      • Book Reviews
      • Gear Reviews
        • Wildlife Optics
          • Binocular Reviews
          • Spotting Scope Reviews
        • Wildlife Clothing
        • Wildlife Accessories
  • Work with us
    • Write for us
    • Advertise with us
    • Sponsorship Opportunities
    • Wildlife Marketing Services
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Disclosure Statement
    • Cookie policy (EU)
  • Contact

Ireland's Wildlife

Irish wildlife, nature and biodiversity

You are here: Home / Wild Blog / Garden Wildlife / Give weeds a break in your garden

Give weeds a break in your garden

October 2, 2012 by Calvin Jones 3 Comments

All over Ireland gardeners are on a mission to eradicate weeds… but is there a different approach that can help the gardener AND help Ireland’s wildlfie?

****

Weeds like the dandelion may be the gardener's nemesis -- but are also a spectacularly successful native speciesWeeds!

The very mention of them can send gardeners into spasm. Throughout summer well into autumn we fight a never-ending battle with weeds. It’s a futile exercise, because we know the seeds released this year mean the weeds will be back to haunt us next spring.

Rather than attempting mass genocide in the garden, I’m a great advocate of the live and let live approach to weeds. Yes, I do my chemical-free best to stop them over-running the polytunnel, taking over the lawn and hijacking the vegetable patch… but in other parts of the garden they’re left to thrive. Weeds are amazing — it just takes a subtle shift in mindset to really appreciate them, that’s all.

When you think about it weeds are simply plants we haven’t cultivated, growing in places we don’t necessarily want them to grow. One of the things that makes weeds so troublesome in the garden is that they are so successful. In sharp contrast to their cultivated cousins our garden “weeds” (aka native wildflowers), have evolved over millions of years to survive and thrive in Ireland’s unique climate, geology and soil chemistry. They are better adapted than, and therefore outcompete, the cultivated plants we introduce into our gardens.

Most common weeds are colonisers: nature’s front line troops in the battle to reclaim waste ground and bare earth. In nature these colonising plants play a crucial role, preparing and enriching the soil for a succession of longer-term species. They lay the foundation for a healthy, sustainable ecosystem. That may not always be desirable on your freshly turned flower bed… but it is pretty amazing. With a little bit of imagination and a tiny bit of effort it’s a trait we can harness to benefit our gardens and the native wildlife they support.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome in this is years of conditioning we get to see weeds as the enemy: something to be eradicated and destroyed at all costs. If we can look beyond our misguided preconceptions, and start to work with nature instead of striving against it, we can strike a balance that works well for our gardens and for wildlife.

We remove nutrients from the garden all the time. Pulling weeds and harvesting crops, by definition, removes the nutrients those plants have invested in growth and development out of the garden ecosystem. Obviously we can’t keep taking things out of the soil without putting something back in if we want our gardens to stay healthy. Weeds can help us to do that in a natural and sustainable way.

The stinging nettle -- make room for this wonderful native plant in your wildlife gardenWeeds like the stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), the dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) and coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) are all deep-rooted species that specialise in drawing nutrients from deep in the soil, where they are locked away from most garden plants. It’s a trait that makes them very effective colonisers of nutrient poor ground. By letting weeds grow in unused corners of the garden, cutting them back occasionally, and using the nutrient-rich foliage for compost, organic mulch or liquid plant feed we can recycle nutrients back into the soil making them available to our garden plants.

Other weeds have properties that make them excellent companion plants. Native wildflowers (aka weeds) tend to be better at attracting pollinating insects, but go on to perform the essential service of pollinating our garden plants too. Some of them, like hoverflies, have larvae that feed voraciously on garden pests like aphids, helping to keep them under control naturally.

Plants like like clovers (Trifolium sp.) can form a close-growing mat — a “living mulch” that leaves little room for other weeds. They also fix nitrogen from the air, enriching the soil for garden plants. Others, like Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), release chemicals that actively repel insect pests, helping to keep them away from our crop plants.

Finally, let’s not forget the role weeds play in attracting and offering refuge to the incredible diversity of wildlife that helps make our gardens all the richer. Insects, other invertebrates, birds and mammals ultimately depend on our native plants for their survival. Some of those they rely on the most are the ones we routinely eradicate as garden weeds.

Weeds are much more than the garden pests we routinely label them as. Try making a bit of room for native wildflowers in forgotten corners of your garden and it won’t be long before you start to notice more wildlife. That’s good news for you, good news for your garden and really good news for your local wildlife.

Filed Under: Garden Wildlife, Irish Independent Column, Wild Opinion, Wildlife Gardening

About Calvin Jones

Calvin Jones is a freelance writer, author, birder and lifelong wildlife enthusiast. He is founder and editor of IrelandsWildlife.com and founder and wildlife guide of Ireland's Wildlife Tours offering wildlife and birding holidays on Ireland's south coast.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Chris Betts says

    June 21, 2015 at 13:01

    So – please – what can I actively sow to fill in the spaces I’ve just cleared of tall grass, dock, nettles (don’t worry, there are plenty elsewhere!) and massive buttercups between some fruit trees? The trees are about a metre in from the overgrown wall/hedge/gorse/hawthorne which separates us from the farm next door. The boundary runs north/south and we’re about 100 metres from the cliff near Tramore in Waterford. I have put a deep ‘apron’ of bark mulch around the boles of the trees themselves. I thought of planting some wild garlic and native bluebells, then sowing clover. What d’you think?

    Reply
    • Calvin Jones says

      June 22, 2015 at 11:53

      That sounds good Chris — try and stick with natives as much as you can, as they tend to be better for insects… and don’t be too concerned about the occasional wild interloper encroaching on the space (just stay on top of anything too aggressive).

      You can buy wildflower seed mixes online, but I’d be inclined to look / ask around locally first to see what’s available.

      Best of luck with it.

      Reply
      • Chris Betts says

        June 22, 2015 at 14:52

        Thanks, Calvin; much appreciated. There is lots of wild garlic within a couple of miles of me, but I believe it’s not permitted to take from the wild, so unless I can find some commercially locally, I’ll buy online. I’ll sow some foxglove seed too (our own) – they had to come out in order to dig out the perennial weed roots, but I love them!

        Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Search the site

  • Microthemer - Visual editor for your WordPress site

Subscribe to the mailing list








Supporting Ireland’s Wildlife

  • Microthemer - Visual editor for your WordPress site

*****

Footer

Experience Ireland’s Wildlife for yourself

Breaching humpback whale Ireland

Join us on a wildlife adventure on Ireland’s Wild South Coast… and find out first hand why we call this Europe’s Undiscovered Wildlife Frontier.

Find out more…

Ireland's Wildlife runs on the Genesis Framework from StudioPress · Hosted with InterServer

Recent Additions

  • 2023 Discover Wildlife Weekend Dates
  • Review: Hawke Frontier APO 10×42 Binocular
  • Book Review: Crossbill Guides, Ireland
  • Avian Influenza hits Irish seabird colonies
  • German Precision Optics (GPO) Passion HD 10×42 Binocular Review
  • Beneficial Garden Insects and How to Attract Them to Your Garden
  • Cuckoo spit/spittlebug foam on plants is harmless. Please leave it alone.
  • Purple Heron: an epic end to our spring Discover Wildlife Weekend

Tags

audio binoculars biodiversity birding birds Birdwatch Ireland books cetaceans citizen science CJ Wildlife competition conservation Cork fin whale full size binoculars garden birds garden wildlife Golden Eagle Trust Hawke humpback whale Ireland IWDG Kerry national biodiversity data centre npws optics photography raptors reintroduction review reviews spring stranding surveys Vanguard west cork whales whales and dolphins whalewatching whale watching white tailed eagle Wildlife wildlife crime wildlife photography wildlife podcasts

Take it from the top....

Copyright © 2023 Ireland's Wildlife · Site Design by West Cork Websites · Content by CJ Writing

Manage Cookie Consent
Like most sites, Ireland's Wildlife uses cookies to improve functionality, enhance your user experience and to gauge the popularity of our content.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}