Never Underestimate a Volunteer

When the first volunteer thistle plant appeared in the garden a few years ago (courtesy, no doubt, of an uneaten seed from the finch feeder), I saw it as a weed that sooner or later would cause me pain. I pulled it out and most of the others that followed.

There was one, however, that had planted itself in a place inconvenient to weed, a spot I wasn’t actively planting in. So I left it. And it grew. And grew. And grew. But as I looked up at the thorny plant, I realized that my procrastination had not been such a bad thing. It was actually rather interesting to look at with its upstretched branches and purple tufts.

And then something very interesting happened. The butterflies found it. And loved it. The finches followed, taking great joy in pulling apart the purple flowers, revealing fluffy seeds. That’s when I decided that the big, old thorny weed could stay – as long as it chose a spot a bit out of the way and refrained from attacking me as I worked near it in the garden.