Weeding the Countryside?

Spotted orchids en masse, I wish I understood how and why they spread

Following on from my last post about weeding the garden, specifically a very naturalistic planting (which some folk might think was a mass of weeds anyway), the next task has been to try to do some vegetation management in the fields we have.

Before I talk about that, I've spent about an hour today on my new method of controlling cow parsnip/hogweed – Heracleum spondylium. In some ways this is a wonderfully architectural biennial, with very impressive foliage, we might even pay good money for it, but it seeds so aggressively, and even little seedlings can be so difficult to get out as they have such deep forked tap roots. So I keep them in the outer fringes, not even allowed in the wild garden, although I am only too happy to let them flower. However it will also produce mature seed within 10 days of the flowers dying. So you have to be on the ball. Today, I cut off the flower heads and injected the hollow stems with herbicide. Should do them in without harming anything else with any luck. Got the idea from how they deal with Japanese knotweed.

Anyway, the fields, which have in parts, a very interesting flora, the wetter it gets, the more dominated by rushes and sedges, hardly any grass, with Pulicaria dysentrica, Potentilla anserina, and much else, some great patches of ragged robin, Lychnis flos-cuculi and spotted orchid, Dactylorhiza fuchsii, in ever greater numbers every year. The diversity is pretty amazing, but it is very vulnerable to be overtaken by the next stages in succession - leave it ten years and it would an alder/willow forest, interesting but not the same.

To keep it in its current very biodiverse state, and even improve it, needs extensive management, i.e. operations that you apply either to the whole thing at once, or to multiples of plants. It is very different to 'gardening' as such. The timing of mowing, or whatever else you do, can make an impact on the species mix, but the effects are complex, subtle, and take time to take effect. One of the papers I was reading suggested that a mid or late season cut maintains the flora, an earlier one will have more impact on the species, mix, and make a bigger impact on the more competitive species. Because the Pulicaria (fleabane) flowers so late, September, we don't mow til really late.

In parts there is meadowsweet, Filipendula ulmaria, which tends to exclude other species, and is the immediate next stage in succession, and so there is a need to control it. It also tends to work in concert with greater bindweed, an alien weed species which can smother other plants with a vengeance. The bindweed runs along the hedge, and climbs up the meadowsweet and then out into the grass. So out with the brushcutter to take down all the meadowsweet which runs along the hedge.

Trying to find out whether this really is a good course of action was difficult. Actually finding out much about managing semi-natural vegetation like this is surprisingly difficult. Googling brings up lots of research papers, most of them seem to be studies undertaken in Czech or Poland, so not sure how useful they are for here. In other cases there seems to be a lot on the conservation of meadowsweet, rather than a concern for its impact on other species.

One thing which is definitely a problem is the bramble, who needs invasive aliens when you have brambles? In our part of the world they grow almost all the year round, reaching out from the hedgerows rooting and running and before you know it they are shading out everything beneath them. But a small area of rooting can support a lot of top growth. They are difficult to deal with by mowing, as they get tangled up with the mower. So, I plan to cut them all off with secateurs at the base, then mow and herbicide spray the regrowth, which will be limited to just a few rooted growth points. Should do them for the next few years.

The DR, our main heavy grass cutter, with a fallen tree behind which acts as a bridgehead for brambles which come out of the hege (right). We might leave the tree as it is still alive and has lots of fruit (sloes).

Two years ago, I did a post on Adding to a Meadow. I can report back that we seem to have success, all the species added seem to be present, a few of the Trollius flowered and some of the Polemonium this year too. Plenty of foliage of the added species is there too. Progress will be slow as competition is so intense, and it will be interesting to see if we get any spreading.

With more and more people managing little bits of land like this, an acre here, a quarter hectare there, the need to understand how to do extensive management is going to grow. It is a different kind of gardening.

SUPPORT THIS BLOG

I write this blog unpaid (of course) and try to do two postings a month, to try to provide the garden, wildflower and plant-loving community with information, inspiration and ideas. Keeping it coming is not always easy to fit into a busy working life. I would very much appreciate it if readers would 'chip in' (as we say in England) and provide a little financial support. After all, you pay for magazines and books, and it is only for historical reasons that the internet is free. Some money coming in will help me to improve quality and frequency, and to start to provide more coherent access to hard information, which I know is what a lot of you really want. So – please donate now!! You can do this through PayPal using email address: noelk57@gmail.com

Thank you!

********
If you like this blog, why not check out my e-books, which are round-ups of some writing I did for Hortus magazine back in the early 2000s, along with an interview with the amazing Beth Chatto. You can read them on Kindle, or Kindle packages for smartphones or the computer. You can find them on my Amazon page here. You will also find my soap opera for gardeners - currently running at eight episodes.

On the attack - early summer weeding

A day spent in the garden – weeding. Having been away for 2 weeks there is a lot to do at this time of year. This is the crucial period, to stop things seeding. It is also a very good time to evaluate what we're doing. And – more generally to reflect on what naturalistic planting is, and how realistic a proposition it is.

I must admit I have a slightly bipolar relationship with the gardens – sometimes revelling in its rich assortment of plantlife that very largely looks after itself (and wildlife, like the almost deafening sound of bumble bees feeding on Symphytum caucasicum), and at other times feeling almost despairing at holding the ring against an incredibly aggressive weed flora. I sometimes worry that if I don't get on top of things, grass and nettles could overrun everything in no time at all.

The planting is largely made up of robust perennials which can indeed look after themselves: some of them stay more or less the same size, others spread out to form solid clumps, some seed around and are gradually insinuating themselves themselves all over, some seem to get overwhelmed – either by stronger-growing neighbours and/or weedy spontaneous species.

The best way to keep unwanted weedy wild species at bay is to have as complete a vegetation canopy over the soil as possible. A lot of my planting is a lot more dense than most people's. Eventually, I aim and intend that it should be as dense as natural vegetation - but with a composition which is aesthetically pleasing for as long as possible. At this density, some garden plants have a different form to how they are grown more conventionally - for example many clump formers like geraniums and astrantias form long stems which wend their way through other plants. This method of growing does not suit species with ground level foliage, like asiatic primulas, which will not tolerate taller things growing above them; primrose/polyanthus/oxlips though seem ok, as their become semi-dormant in summer and don't mind being crowded and overshadowed.

We have an incredibly aggressive weed flora: pasture grasses, creeping buttercup, stinging nettle, dandelions, wood avens. My recent visit to the USA has illustrated just how successfully some of these have joined/invaded the North American flora – and yet not a single species of North American origin has become a problem alien in Britain (a few have, possibly, in mainland Europe). Weeds are a problem because if not dealt with they would quite quickly out-compete almost all garden perennials (and many natives too).

Our garden gets high rainfall, the soil hangs on to it, and we have a very high level of fertility, so if a plant likes it here, it grows incredibly vigorously. Such a situation is exploited most effectively by the species which can make the most of the resources available – which varies enormously. Those which can turn nutrients into leaf and root the fastest tend to be the most troublesome.

 But what makes a plant a weed? Such a question leads onto my idea of the hierarchy of weeds.

• Public Enemy Number One(s)
• Those to eliminate as much as possible, but not necessarily totally
• Wild Plants which are not really Bad Weeds, but Which I Don't Like
• Minor nuisances, usually tolerated

The list can be cross-referenced to the different parts of the garden, where different standards apply:

The Wild Garden – where Those to eliminate as much as possible, but not necessarily totallycan be given plenty of scope (because the inhabitants of the wild garden will, for the most part, keep on top of them).

The Borders – where Minor nuisances, usually tolerated, are indeed tolerated, as well as a certain number of Wild Plants which are not really Bad Weeds, but Which I Don't Likeare also allowed to get away with it.

Vegetable Garden, areas for annuals and test and nursery beds – have to be kept clear of almost anything and everything.

Public Enemy Number One(s)

There are a few (very few) species which are so effective at utilising nutrients and turning them into growth which suppresses all else that they just have to go: dug out or Rounded-upped (or otherwise herbicided). The Stinging Nettle tops the bill. This is a very worrying plant, not just because it will get the better of just about any non-woody plant but because it is capable of slowly smothering the entire British non-forest flora. L
isten to this BBC podcast . Fed by nitrogen pollution, septic tanks and over-use of fertilizer, I have seen nettles advance over more diverse floras here since we moved – in places where they must be being fed by nitrogen pollution (caused by car exhausts primarily). It was worrying to see them in the Pacific North-West recently too. Mind you, they make nice soup!

Cocks foot grass (Dactylis glomerata) is another, an aggressive tussock former which eliminates all competition.

Those to eliminate as much as possible, but not necessarily totally

 The Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens) is a good example here, which flourishes on our damp soil. It makes establishing anything difficult, and can cover ground with frightening speed. However I cannot help but be charmed by its yellow flowers at this time of year, which when dotted around between and beneath other plants are undeniably part of the visual mix here. The fact is, most the stuff I grow gets bigger than it does, and so it gets out-competed, so it is simply not a major issue for the borders and certainly not the Wild Garden.

Wild Plants which are not really Bad Weeds, but Which I Don't Like

Horrible smelly Stachys sylvestris is one, can't remember its English name, runs but not a real nuisance, if it had better flowers I would have no problem with it. Ditto Wood Avens (Geum urbanum). To be honest, i can't see it out-competing most of the things I grow, as it does not spread but stays very tight, it just seeds so such, and doesn't earn its keep, but there is no way I can do much more than keep its numbers down. There is a grass too (not very good at IDing grasses), I think it is Agrostis stolonifera, which seems to get everywhere, but it is so light and it seems very uncompetitive that I can't get too overexcited about it. Trouble is, these are not problem plants, but they seed so much, and in quantity could become competitive against desired plants in spring. If the worst comes to the worst they can be hoed off in dry winter weather (on the rare occasions we have it) or Rounded-Upped if they are growing en masse at this time. Most native weedy species start into growth before non-native perennials, which is part of the problem as it gives them a competitive advantage, but it does mean you can see them and eliminate them.

Epilobiums/Willowherbs too, but they are quite easy to pull out, or hoe off the seedlings. They don't compete and as they canopy builds up they lose their habitat.

Plants that some people think are weeds but I don't (at least in perennial plantings).
Hairy Bitter Cress, little speedwelly things,

One final point, because the garden vegetation is very dense, which is one of the visual delights, plants tend to support each other - weeding or stepping into plantings can cause gaps, plants to collapse - and they can take some time to pick themselves up again and sort out their positions again. Something to think about, when we have a garden opening coming up, but then if you don't deal with those creeping buttercup plants now they'll seed and spread.

SUPPORT THIS BLOG

I write this blog unpaid (of course) and try to do two postings a month, to try to provide the garden, wildflower and plant-loving community with information, inspiration and ideas. Keeping it coming is not always easy to fit into a busy working life. I would very much appreciate it if readers would 'chip in' (as we say in England) and provide a little financial support. After all, you pay for magazines and books, and it is only for historical reasons that the internet is free. Some money coming in will help me to improve quality and frequency, and to start to provide more coherent access to hard information, which I know is what a lot of you really want. So – please donate now!! You can do this through PayPal using email address: noelk57@gmail.com

Thank you!

********
If you like this blog, why not check out my e-books, which are round-ups of some writing I did for Hortus magazine back in the early 2000s, along with an interview with the amazing Beth Chatto. You can read them on Kindle, or Kindle packages for smartphones or the computer. You can find them on my Amazon page here. You will also find my soap opera for gardeners - currently running at eight episodes.

Land of the balsam-root, blue camas, and housing sprawl

Balsamorhiza sagittata and an Eriophorum sp. on Rowena Bluffs, OR.

 Spending two weeks in the USA. Mostly in the Pacific North West. Between doing lectures and workshops I have been out and about seeing as much of the wild plant life in this most beautiful of regions. At the moment, I can't bear the thought of going back to England, which seems so tame, limited and ecologically damaged by comparison. For those who have never been, the PNW offers a truly amazing range of epic landscapes and incredible biodiversity.

For all sorts of geological reasons connected with ice ages, the flora here is richer than in Europe, and far more than in Britain. There is also that extraordinary change as you go east – west, which is what you find all the way down the western spine of mountains and intermontane basins from British Columbia to Chile. Quite unlike anything in the Old World, a few hours west-east driving takes you from lush temperate to semi-desert (or even real desert) and then to cooler montane temperate, and so on. So, different floras mix and match and interweave in relation to different climates but also of course geology.

Lupinus sp. possibly L. sericeus in Ponderosa Pine woodland

The Rowena Bluffs area of the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon, is Quercus garryana (Garry Oak) savannah, with castilleja, lupin and Balsamorhiza sagitata (Balsam Root). Castilleja is a semi-parasite, related to the yellow rattle beloved of by British wildflower meadow restorationists. And famously difficult to grow in garden conditions. Pictures here.

Turnbull Wildlife Refuge is in eastern Washington. It is a truly epic landscape. You can get the feeling that this is what this country looked like before white settlers - as far as you can see there is no trace of human habitation or obvious impact. It is also a very attractive landscape – parkland, a kind of Ponderosa Pine savannah, which alternates grassland with a very loose open forest. I think (as indeed do many others) that we respond to this kind of landscape because we came from the African savannah and it is somehow hard-wired into our brains. The wildflowers were sensational, a result of a dramatic geological history which has left shallow, even minimal soils over basalt, with closely intertwined wet and dry places. The blue Camassia quamash grows on the wet while yellow umbellifer Lomatium triternatum on the drier. You can see pictures here.

Balsamohrhiza again, unlike the lupins, a long-lived perennial which apparently takes 5 years to reach flowering size, with a deep taproot, hence not seen much in gardens.

Being here is also an opportunity to look at a characteristically American way of living, which is kind of worrying for the future – low density living. Travel outside any US city and its aureole of suburbia and you hit huge areas of housing more or less hidden in the woods. Lots of houses on big lots - often over an acre. I think of it as 'exurbia'. Rarely do folk 'garden' most of this area, which stays wild, but only sort-of. Ok, but not great for shy wildlife (although increasingly US wildlife is anything but shy). However over time, the whole process of woodland regeneration will inevitably suffer. The inevitable suppression of fire means that the species mix will change, and all too often when there is a fire, it will burn out of control because of the fuel build-up of years worth of dead leaves, branches etc. How many homeowners know anything about forest management anyway?

The idea that houses in large lots keeps the rural character is an odd one. You can't escape the houses, their drives, the aggressive 'keep out' signs. By building at such low density, vast areas of real rural areas, in the form of unmanaged or natural forest land is being effectively lost. I can't help feeling that the big lot sizes are part of an unsustainable 1950s 'American Dream' way of life along with enormous houses ('MacMansions') and the widely criticised 'trucks' (enormous gas-guzzling cars, which seem so essential to the expression of masculinity here). It also feels that, amongst some people, there is a deep aversion to living in any kind of community; a landscaping style which also mean a long-term loss of natural communities as well.

Link here to a fascinating piece on the vanishing White Oak in eastern forests, which relates to these issues:

http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/10/927.full 

 

SUPPORT THIS BLOG

I write this blog unpaid (of course) and try to do two postings a month, to try to provide the garden, wildflower and plant-loving community with information, inspiration and ideas. Keeping it coming is not always easy to fit into a busy working life. I would very much appreciate it if readers would 'chip in' (as we say in England) and provide a little financial support. After all, you pay for magazines and books, and it is only for historical reasons that the internet is free. Some money coming in will help me to improve quality and frequency, and to start to provide more coherent access to hard information, which I know is what a lot of you really want. So – please donate now!! You can do this through PayPal using email address: noelk57@gmail.com

Thank you!

********
If you like this blog, why not check out my e-books, which are round-ups of some writing I did for Hortus magazine back in the early 2000s, along with an interview with the amazing Beth Chatto. You can read them on Kindle, or Kindle packages for smartphones or the computer. You can find them on my Amazon page here. You will also find my soap opera for gardeners - currently running at eight episodes.

A flying visit to Chicago and the Lurie Garden

Interesting being at the Lurie Garden in Chicago after such a viciously cold winter and seeing it all coming back to life, garden director Jennifer Davit tells me that “everything” of Piet Oudolf's planting has survived. All down to snow cover – with a decent depths of snow you can get away with a lot. Its great to see everything coming back to life and the first bulbs, which are almost over at home in England, so I feel like I'm getting a second crack at spring.

Muscari do well here, this is the support act for the Salvia River later on but they do not spread like they do at home.

What's so great about the Lurie Garden is the intensity and diversity of the planting, you can look at a bit a few square metres across and say “there's so much going on here, I could imagine having this at home” which you couldn't with a classic Oehme van Sweden planting. It's what convinced me to work with them on doing the little book, a sort of primer for gardeners: Gardening with Perennials: Lessons from Chicago's Lurie Garden.

One colleague I had breakfast with, said he thought the Lurie was too much an “intensive care unit for plants” which isn't really fair, as although it takes a lot of work, some of it done with volunteers, the comparison you have to make is with the convention of summer bedding, which takes vastly more work, an annual expenditure, offers only the most temporary home for biodiversity and raises so many sustainability issues. The fact that it does take effort to maintain is actually a way of getting public engagement with gardening.

Lovely pale form of Mertensia virginica, which seeds itself around here, is summer dormant to fits well with other later perennials and grasses. At home in Hummelo Piet finds it even grows in with big clumps of grasses.

It's such a great place, this time I felt, not its scale, but actually its intimacy, it is quite a small area compared to the vastness of the whole lakeside park area. Which helps, I think, get the message across that this is something relevant to home gardeners. And if you are here, make sure you check out the plantings on lake side of the Art Institute of Chicago too, designed by Roy Diblik. Who, by the way has got a very good new book out.

Euphorbia polychroma 'Bonfire' in Roy's planting at the Art Institute.

Piet Oudolf in Somerset

Just popped into Durslade Farm, just outside Bruton in Somerset, home of the new Hauser + Wirth gallery. The Guardian are talking about it as the "new Guggenheim". We shall see.  Whatever artworks it will host, it is a wonderful design project, with the 19th century farm buildings being lovingly and imaginatively restored to provide gallery spaces, all being done to an incredibly high standard.

Piet Oudolf is doing the planting, of a courtyard area and a field out the back which will link the gallery to the surrounding countryside via blocks of perennials. He seems very pleased with the project. A distinct feature is the elevations in each block, which don't look much now, but will probably have quite an impact on how we see the plants.

Jo walking down the newt fencing

The newt fencing is a legal requirement apparently, special buckets have to be set out for them to fall into so they, and other trapped amphibians can be then removed to the safe side. All well and good, except that I don't see one of the causes of reptile/amphibian decline being dealt with anytime soon - the shooting industry and its legions of pheasants which gobble them up wholesale.

Jo with Alice Workman, gallery Director

This promises to be a very exciting project, and nice to have it relatively nearby for frequent visits.

Sporobolus clumps escaping into the walkway

Positioning artworks using 2D representations.

********

If you like my blog, why not check out my e-books, which are round-ups of some writing I did for Hortus magazine back in the early 2000s, along with an interview with the amazing Beth Chatto. You can read them on Kindle, or Kindle packages for smartphones or the computer. You can find them on my Amazon page here. You will also find my soap opera for gardeners - currently running at eight episodes.

Lost in translation

Tall herb flora in Kyrgyzstan on a wet scree slope. Aconitum leuostomum mostly, to 2m tall.

I just had the following letter from a student in canton Zürich, Switzerland. It raises some interesting topics, not least the very different approaches to studying plant management in German-speaking and English-speaking countries. I'm answering her through a blog posting, so more of you can see it.

I'm currently studying at the ZHAW in Wädenswil... The topic of my term paper is the "stability" (Standfestigkeit) of "large herbaceous perennials" (Grosstauden). I don't know the proper technical terms in english. For this reason I hardly found English literature. Now my question to you: Could you translate following words in technical language? "Standfestigkeit", "Grossstaude" and "Staudenhecke". Maybe you even know some links or papers about these topics?

The embarrassing thing is that, unlike in German-speaking countries, we do very little, indeed almost no formal research into ornamental plant design or management. James Hitchmough and colleagues at the University of Sheffield do some fantastic work on establishing perennial combinations and a little on management, but the field is so vast, and no-one else does anything. Collecting data and being precise are a bit too 'Germanic' for most British gardeners. Yes, its frustrating. We are trying to change things, but it is slow.

Standfestigkeit translates as 'stability' or the more colloquial term we gardeners would use would be 'sturdiness' – i.e. does it fall over or not? Especially after flowering.

Grossstauden as 'tall perennials'. And yes, tall perennials do tend to fall over in gardens. Let's unpack this a bit more and look at the ecological and regional origin of perennials which grow tall.

1) 'Tall herb flora' has a very special meaning to an ecologist; in Britain we have very little of it, and the expression has little meaning, so I sometimes find myself using the German Hochstauden to English-speaking audience, to stress that this means something special. This may sound pretentious but there is a long tradition of English-speaking intellectuals using German words, which can often say in a word what English needs a sentence for (we are always talking about Zeitgeist, Schadenfreude etc). Hochstauden or tall-herb flora means those incredible places you get in hilly or mountain areas where very mineral rich and oxygenated water flows constantly underground to nourish the growth of perennials to massive sizes. My best experience of these was in Kyrgyzstan a few years ago, but the Alps can be good too. Huge perennials, many of which we grow as garden plants: many Aconitum, Campanula lactiflora, Persicaria amplexicaulis, and yes, in nature they are very untidy and often fail to show much Standfestigkeit.

2) Prairie plants, from the tallgrass prairie – high rainfall, fertile soils, high summer temperatures, grow tall too, but tend not to fall over (ok. my prairie experience is limited but I have never seen a flopped-over prairie). Grasses play a role and may help support the forbs, but also I suspect that competition ensures that growth is kept within limits.

3) Perennial forbs from places with monsoon climates, so a bit like the prairie. I'm thinking of Russian far-east and Hokkaido, Japan. Massive growth to compete in a wet resource rich environment.

Filipendula camtschatica and a Eupatorium in Hokkaido, Japan.

These plants in cultivation tend to be grown with wide spacing compared to nature, and so there is little competition and so they overfeed (like getting fat really) get top heavy and fall over. Simple as that. Grow them at closer densities and they are less likely to get so large and more likely to show good Standfestigkeit.

Staudenhecke – translates as 'perennial hedge', which is something they have been experimenting with at ZHAW. Basically, plant a line of tall self-supporting perennials in a narrow band and you have a seasonal hedge feature. Nice idea. Have never seen anyone do it here, apart from the one I did here three years ago, and which I cannot find a photograph of which show it clearly :( Basically I have a line of Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster' and some forbs acting as a screen half way down the garden. I'm not entirely happy yet with the companion forbs: Veronicastrum virginicum/sibiricum is ok Vernonia would be if the ****ing slugs hadn't eaten them all last year, Eupatorium maculatum/fistulosum etc. are very good, I think Helianthus 'Sheila's Sunshine' would be good too. Anything bolt upright.

Perennial hedge at ZHAW, Switzerland.

Which brings me on to my final point, which I have never seen described anywhere, if you dig up any of the perennials I have just described, you will find something very interesting. The helianthus – you just dig up, comes up easily, like an aster or solidago. The eupatorium and vernonia involve hacking your way through a massive radial root system - which takes a few years to build up, and is clearly a solution to how to stop 3m high plants from falling over. It is quite unlike anything you will find in any other perennial. Impressive engineering. So perfect for the Staudenhecke which I must really try to complete this year.

In researching the use of the German terms which Anna asks about, I came across the most fabulous looking Staudengarten (perennial garden) near Rostock. Can't wait to get there. http://www.wildstaudenzauber.de

Anna – There is one book you might find useful: Tall Perennials, Turner, R. Timber Press, 2009.

one book I really do recommend, which is about plant ecology, but highly relevant to garden and landscape planting design is:

J. Philip Grime, 2001. Plant Strategies, Vegetation Processes, and Ecosystem Properties. Wiley.

********

If you like my blog, why not check out my e-books, which are round-ups of some writing I did for Hortus magazine back in the early 2000s, along with an interview with the amazing Beth Chatto. You can read them on Kindle, or Kindle packages for smartphones or the computer. You can find them on my Amazon page here. You will also find my soap opera for gardeners - currently running at eight episodes.

Monarchs and Monsanto - a plea to think (and grow more milkweed and eat more insects).

The last few years has seen discussion of a rather worrying trend in declining numbers of monarch butterflies. One fairly obvious reason for the decline would appear to be a decline in the milkweeds (Asclepias species) on which they feed. This is because farmers are now so efficient at eliminating all weeds from their fields.

Cue a hysterical reaction. Like this.

I have long thought that environmentalists are often bad for the environment and this is a good example. The complete failure to think through some basics on this issue is spectacular. As is the refusal to take responsibility for one's own eating habits. Why take responsibility when you can blame an easy scapegoat. Like Monsanto. Just mention the company and you get an instant knee-jerk reaction – with an associated brain disconnect. Blaming Monsanto avoids actually looking at the issue.Which is what I intend to do here.

Furthermore, the easiest solution to this problem is so obvious its ridiculous, and it is something which directly involves gardeners and the landscape industry. 

As anyone who grows their own veg can tell you, weeds compete with your crops and you have to minimise them. Farmers have to do this to survive commercially, something organic growers know as well as conventional. So can we blame farmers for using an effective herbicide like Roundup? Or combining the herbicide with crops which are genetically modified to resist the chemical?

And why do the farmers of the Midwest grow so intensively? Or indeed any farmers?

Well there are rather a lot of us. And as living standards rise, which they are rather doing strongly in many poorer countries, one of the first things people do is eat more meat. Meat production is an inefficient converter of plant material to animal: chickens aren't too bad, pigs and sheep are not so good, but beef cattle are terrible. In other words, farming needs to be intensive to provide us with the diet we have chosen. If you eat meat every day, it's no good blaming Monsanto for selling Roundup and Rounup-Ready crops, you should take responsibility for the disappearing milkweed. And don't say that you only eat local grass-fed beef, or some other politically correct feel-good foodie excuse. Do you suppose that organic beef farmers let toxic milkweed grow all over their fields?

An alternative sounds attractive. Less intensive farming, wildflower strips, higher weed populations. Yes, all well and good. Except that the demand for crops is still there, and they have to come from somewhere. Reducing intensity leads to a trade-off effect – a need for more arable land. And that is one thing we don't have much of left. Arable land is actually declining globally. We also do not want to sacrifice any more wild landscapes, forests, wetlands etc. We simply have to get the most out of what arable land we have.

I have driven around Iowa a bit (whilst researching at Ames Uni. and attending the World Food Prize, some years ago) - it is the quintessential Midwest farming state, and one where monarch butterfly populations and milkweed have notably fallen. And do I remember roadside to roadside crops? Every patch of ground covered in soya or corn? Er no actually. I seem to recall that like much of the rest of the USA there is an awful lot of mown grass. Vast areas of the stuff in fact. Alongside roads, around houses, offices, churches, shops there seems to be endless acres of this utterly useless vegetation. You can't eat it, cows can't eat it, wildlife can't live on it, and it needs mowing all the time. Why not plant wildflowers, include lots of milkweed of course. Problem solved. There is space for milkweed AND crops.

On a slight change of subject, we would all live more lightly on the earth if we ate not just less meat, but er.... more insects. They are fantastically efficient converters of plant to animal protein. In Mexico last week I tried chapulines – grasshoppers, and even brought some back with me. Delicious AND sustainable!!!