Weeding is to a gardener what the boulder was to Sisyphus.
Is it impossible or hopeless? Is it meaningless, since it will never be completed? Yet someone has to do it!
Weeds represent the human condition — an endless pursuit of goals that often feel unattainable; the tension between meaning and meaningless.
Weeds serve as a reminder of the constant effort required to achieve our aspirations, only to find ourselves confronted with new obstacles. You thought they were just little green annoyances. At this point, why bother reading further?
As you decided to read on, here are five natural ways to improve your garden.
Epsom salt
Do you want more blooms and greenery? Then mix Epsom salt with water and apply it to your flowering plants. This natural booster enhances your plants’ ability to produce stunning blooms and lush foliage, making your garden even more gorgeous and thriving. Mix 2 tablespoons with lukewarm water, put in sprayer, and provide a foliar spray early in the morning every four to six weeks. Roses, tomatoes, peppers, geraniums, hydrangeas, azaleas, rhododendrons, and annuals love it.
Egg shells
Are a natural powerhouse for your garden. Crush them up and sprinkle them around plants. They are rich in calcium, which is essential for plant growth and helps strengthen roots. Also, they will stop slugs.
Coffee grounds
They’re a garden gamechanger! Mixing them into your soil helps improve soil structure and creates an environment that bugs can’t stand. Coffee grounds are rich in nitrogen and function as a natural pest deterrent, keeping slugs and other unwanted guests away. Sprinkle them around your plants to boost the soil’s health and keep pests at bay.
Banana peel fertilizer
Give your plants a potassium boost. Chop peels up a bit and soak them in water and then use the liquid as a homemade fertilizer for strong, healthy plants. It’s an easy, inexpensive way to provide your plants with a natural nutrient boost. Leftover peel can be mixed into soil or your compost pile.
Neem Oil
Neem oil is an organic pesticide that repels a wide range of pests without harming your plants, pets, or family. It’s a safe, eco-friendly solution for keeping your garden healthy and pest-free.
Late spring is the time for some strategic pruning and pinching of select perennial plants to help manage size, encourage more blooms, and extend flowering time later in the season. This technique, known as the Chelsea chop, gets its name from the timing in late spring, coinciding with when London’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show takes place.
The Chelsea chop involves cutting back certain perennials by about one-third to one-half in early June. While it may feel drastic to remove so much of the plant, this pruning method stimulates bushier growth, helps prevent flopping in taller species, and often extends flower numbers on bushier plants. Cutting back also delays blooming, extending bloom time in the garden.
Many native plants that bloom in late summer and fall are good candidates for the Chelsea chop. Try observing which plants in your garden flop over summer and fall and consider pinching them next spring. When you have a large number of the same plant in an area, you can also experiment with cutting some while leaving others, especially in the back, to give variety of heights and bloom times.
Here is a list of great native plants that benefit from a Chelsea chop: anise hyssop, asters, beebalm, common wingstem, downy skullcap, goldenrods, ironweed, native sunflowers like tall swamp sunflower, shasty daisy, sneezeweed, tall tickseed, turtlehead, and last but not least, garden phlox, especially ‘jeana,’ which was perennial of the year in 2024. It’s attractive to pollinators, including butterflies, hummingbird moths, bumblebees, and hummingbirds. It is highly mildew resistant and juglone tolerant.
Your new perspective on the world of weeds leaves you at a crossroads. You can say why bother, it is all meaningless. Or get back into the garden green and the garden of life to pursue your goals. I say choose the latter to make your garden grand and the future better.
