When is a Weed not a Weed?

Herb Robert Photo © Debs Cook

The answer to me is obvious, when it’s a herb, and most weeds are herbs in disguise! One of my pet hates is when people use the term weed for anything they either don't want to be there, are ugly, or prolific e.g. dandelion, one man's weed is another man's herbal cure! Hence the reason I got involved with filming the Countryfile programme about the dandelion. I hate to see valuable herbs being maligned and treated as second class citizens. It constantly amazes me what grows in the hedgerows and waysides, so many things we can use to cook and cure.

A lady I know contacted me to say she’d been plagued by a weed called Herb Robert (Geranium robertianum) in her lawn, she’d previously told me that she suffered from eczema and wanted something that could help. In the past Herb Robert has been used to treat eczema, it has astringent and anti-inflammatory properties. Sometimes Mother Nature grows the things we need to heal us right under our noses, we just have to know where to look! You can make a tea with it, use 1 teaspoon of dried Herb Robert per cup, it tastes a bit funky so try adding some crushed fennel seeds or lemon verbena to perk up the flavour. If you're not happy taking Herb Robert internally, then make an infusion of the leaves, allow to cool and bathe the eczema patches with it. Herb robert has also been used to treat toothache and nosebleeds, and it has diuretic properties and was once used as a cure for dysentery!

The lady went on to tell me how she had another weed in her garden that she had trouble eradicating, she called it ‘Sticky Weed’. It turned out to be Goosegrass or Cleavers (Galium aparine), another herb with medicinal uses. Goosegrass is a traditional springtime 'tonic' helping to eliminate toxins from the system when taken as a tea, it's also used by some medicinal herbalists to treat M.E. and glandular fever. It's also been used for ages as cheap free edible greens although I find it a bit too chewy for my liking.

In my garden aside from cleavers and dandelions, 'weeds' are Sun Spurge (Euphorbia helioscopia), Wood Avens better known as Herb Bennet (Geum urbanum), Fumitory (Fumaria officinalis), Speedwell (Veronica officinalis) and Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) I know! But around these parts, yarrow is considered a weed! There are a few others as well but the ones listed above are some of the prettiest and all have some medicinal use, although not all are safe to use these days e.g. Sun Spurge, the sap was used to treat warts but no longer as it's toxic.

What grows in your garden without your intervention gives you a clue to what the area used to be like e.g. marshy, woodland, fenland etc and also what sort of soil you have. I have a theory that if a plant is treated as a weed and made to feel unwelcome then it does its best to grow more prolifically to spite the gardener! Acknowledge its existence and explain to it that you want to grow 'X' in that space and you may find it will be less troublesome. We kept getting eyebright and clover growing in our lawn, so much so that no grass would grow, so we took out the lawn and planted more herbs made bigger beds and we've had no clover or eyebright since (although I do miss the eyebright such a pretty little flower!). I'll be back to this topic in due course, I have a mind to document all the wonderful herbs growing in the wild and investigate their uses.