num_pages: 216
description: Is that a weed? This question asked by anyone who has ever gardened or mowed a lawn does not have an easy answer. After all a weed as suburban mother and professional weed scientist Nancy Gift reminds readers is simply a plant out of place. In A Weed by Any Other Name  Gift offers a personal unapologetic defense of clovers dandelions plantains and more chronicling her experience with these enemy plants season by season.Rather than falling prey to pressures to achieve the perfect lawn and garden Gift elucidates the many reasons to embrace an unconventional weedy yard. She celebrates the spots of wildness that crop up in various corners of suburbia redeeming many a plant's reputation by expounding on its positive qualities. She includes recipes for dandelion wine and garlic mustard pesto as well as sketches that show the natural beauty of flowers such as the morning glory classified by the USDA as an invasive and noxious weed.Although she is an advocate of weeds Gift admits that some plants do require eradication-she happily digs out multiflora rose and resorts to chemical warfare on poison ivy. But she also demonstrates that weeds often carry a message for us about the land and our treatment of it if we are willing to listen.
language: English
title: A Weed by Any Other Name: The Virtues of a Messy Lawn, or Learning to Love the Plants We Don't Plant
publisher: Beacon Press