On Saturday, 11 May 2013 09:44:31 UTC+1, kay wrote:


Remember weeds are merely plants that you don't want in that particular

position. Don't pull up anything that you don't recognise - it's a good

way to start learning plant id, and the small insignificant seedling,

although it will probably turn into a dandelion, my turn into something

nice. I'm being really careful about the harebells growing in my

driveway, whereas one of my most troublesome weeds is being sold by our

local garden centre at �4.50 a pot.

If the garden is looking good, you're doing things right. Best way of

learning is to pend lots of time wandering round the garden just

looking, and seeing the results of what you have done.


Two excellent pieces of advice there.
That looking constantly and learning from the results of what you've done is probably the most important and overlooked facets of gardening and not done anywhere near enough.
Also following on from Kay's post and Sacha's - this thing about hoeing, it can wreck a subtly managed garden in a flash.
A lot of very desirable plants will self seed and do better than if you took the seeds and sowed them yourself - OTOH many will become altogether too much so you need to learn which need control (now bring out the hoe if you like)and those which need encouragement (put that hoe away again and learn to identify the desirables amongst the weeds.

Rod