At this time of year, the weeds are the ground cover of a garden and it’s a joy to see green spread and cover the brown patches of winter.

Perhaps a better word for weeds is wildflowers or wild plants or uncultivated plants or even “volunteers,” a term usually reserved in gardening for a purposely planted seed that has strayed from its planned placement. Weed is in the eye of the beholder.

Still these volunteer bursts of green can block the sun and use up the soil nutrients for one’s purposely seeded plants, so weeding is part of my ongoing gardening routine for the next six months.

Yesterday, I was delighted to see seedlings that had been hidden by the weeds.