OK, I’ve been sort of flip here the last few days about this weed thing, but y’all have to seriously understand the depth of my passion on this subject. It must not be minimized:

Key to understanding Weed Man is understanding the touch, sometimes light and sometimes heavy, he places upon his garden ecosystem. A weed in the right place is transformed into a plant, and is gently spared and watered. A weed in the wrong place must go. But there is always the fascination – why this spot? Why this weed?

Take the sunflower.

Our garden right now is, in several places, a forest of sunflowers. Some are feral, the offspring of old hybrids (the big seedhead kind) that have drifted back to their wild type. Some are planted new this year, autumn beauties (I think that’s the name – some a rich velvety brown, some tinted yellow toward the edges and brown at the center) that Nora gave her mom for Mother’s Day.

Out my office window, the backyard is dotted with yellow, the sunflowers buzzing with bees if you get up close. I’m pretty sure not a one out there got planted this year. All are spawn of last year’s offal. Out front, Lissa and I were sitting this morning on the porch watching a little finch of some kind sitting on a sunflower plant – light enough not to bend the stalk – and leaning over the flower into the seedhead for a snack.

(John Bohnsack has nicer Albuquerque flowersthan mine.)