Why I Love to Weed

Our sprawling perennial garden delights me with constant surprises. What’s in bloom today? Dedicated gardeners appear to pot, divide, or transplant with pleasure. Me, I’d rather pull dandelions.

• Immediate gratification. New plants can take weeks to flower. Weeding brings visible results that very day.
• Sun and breeze. After months of Wisconsin winter, I welcome almost any excuse to get outdoors.
• Quasi-meditation. The task absorbs just enough of my mind to stop it from churning. Vague thoughts fall quietly into place.
• Effortless learning. Getting up close and personal with plants, wanted and unwanted, I recognize their shapes and habits a little more readily each year.

Not so different from other joys and comforts, actually: sunshine on the Ice Age Trail, sentences that form in my head while folding laundry, everyday details of an unfamiliar era revealed in historical novels. As for immediate gratification—for breaks in a long-term project like writing a book-length manuscript, what could be more refreshing than whipping out a haiku or a limerick, or a patch of freshly weeded earth?