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Every garden can be categorized in the same way. Gardens that were planted 100 years ago or gardens that were planted yesterday. Whether they’re intended as ecological havens, food gardens, or artistic displays, their plants all fit into ONLY 3 categories…

THE CURATED - The plants we choose. These are the intentional plants. The ones we’ve designed for the space for a specific reason. They’ve been planted on purpose. Easy enough to understand.

THE VOLUNTEER - The plants that choose us. They arrive spontaneously after planting. They weren’t planted or even planned for. But here they are, and they mesh well into the garden for any number of reasons. This is where the subjectivity comes in because whether a volunteer is wanted or not is up to the gardener. A popular volunteer in my garden is Purslane. I’ve never planted it (I don’t even know if I’ve ever even seen it sold anywhere?) but when it comes, I welcome it (not always, but most of the time). It makes a great ground cover, is soft to walk on with bare feet, and is super heathy to eat.

THE WEED - The plants we choose to remove. These are the unwanted volunteers. They weren’t curated nor are they welcome. Things start to get blurry here because both curated and volunteer plants can BECOME weeds if they are spreading too vigorously. While gardening at Summit Station this past year New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) was curated because it perfectly suits the abandoned railway vibe and provides a strong purple drift in the fall. But when they spread anywhere and everywhere, they start to negatively impact the aesthetic so it gets selectively (not entirely) weeded out. The line I draw is with known invasive plants, things like buckthorn, periwinkle, miscanthus, yellow archangel, etc. I consider weeds. When I see these growing, I quickly remove them.

This simple categorization system works for every single garden. And managing these three categories to help steer the garden is my definition of GARDENING. The exact same species can be a curated plant in one garden, a volunteer in another, and a weed somewhere else. It’s up to you…

The Garden Shift Podcast

I'll be joining Tina for an episode on Rainscaping in the upcoming Season 4 of The Garden Shift. I've included here the episode on Getting Started with Lorraine Johnson.

The Modern Rain Garden

Discover the most practical and effective rain garden building resource. Design and build the rain garden that is going to solve your water problems and bring nature into your space.

This updated and expanded second edition covers more topics and goes deeper into why and how the Scrape, Shape, and Plant method is one that lets nature do the work.

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Best,

Michael