GARDENING is very often about the latest fads, trends and fashions, whether it's certain styles, particular plants or new (and sometimes old ) methods.
Currently topping nearly every green-fingered guru's 'must do' list is sustainability, the need to reduce gardening's impact on the environment. Where once the whole idea of gardening was to control nature, the convention these days is to work with it. Nothing illustrates this transformation better than the Royal Horticultural Society recent rebrand of weeds as "resilient plants".
Sheila Das, garden manager at RHS Wisley in Surrey, said gardeners should stop using the term "weeds" in a derogatory way and instead refer to "weed heroes" or "superweeds".
“We used to call them plants in the wrong place,” she said.
“They are not. They are plants in the right place. If you’ve got a weed, it’s telling you what’s going on underground. Your weed is your adviser. It’s your friend.”
The presence of certain weeds, she said, is your ground's way of telling you about its condition – nettles indicate plenty of nitrogen, for instance, while fat hen suggests nutrient deficiency.
The move away from stigmatising weeds is part of the RHS's wider aim of promoting sustainability and eschewing chemical controls. From now on, RHS retail will only sell pesticide free plant protection products, while the charity's website is being updated to reflect "current views on gardening for the environment".
It has also emerged that four of the 12 show gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show this year will feature plants traditionally regarded as weeds, including brambles, thistles and knapweed.
If the content of this weekly column focused on each of the weeds in my garden, you'd likely still be reading about them this time next year. Arguably I have many more plants in the wrong place than in the right. They come in all sizes, from errant plum and cherry trees to herb Robert and bindweed.
Some, like ground elder, are pernicious, while others, such as dandelion, are relatively benign. Many, like nettles and docks, are native and play an important role as habitats, but others such as alexanders and the cursed monbretia (Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora), which is still welcomed into many gardens, are non-native and invasive.
Brambles and ivy are acceptable in the hedgerow but spurned elsewhere, while creeping buttercups are beautiful among long grass yet most unwelcome in a mixed border.
The point I'm making is that not all weeds are equal, and while for past 20 years this column has been almost evangelical in urging readers to embrace nature, it's important to acknowledge that rewilding in a garden context must have limits.
At the top of the hierarchy is Japanese knotweed, an alien plant for which any positives have yet been identified. So invasive is this east Asian native that it's illegal to propagate it or dump it without a licence.
At the other end of the scale are the likes of thistles, daisies and the aforementioned dandelion, all of which are an important source of food for our native invertebrates.
There's a new generation of environmentalists who advocate letting nature run wild in your garden, and while I sympathise with their reasoning, I can't yet fully endorse their methods, as it would pretty much signal the death of ornamental gardening as we know it.
Those Chelsea show gardens utilising weeds may well look good for a week in late May but for much of the summer they'll have the appearance of a neglected wasteland. By all means take a walk on the wild side but eventually find your way back to civilisation.
