Sadly, I remember only two things from my studies back in the day at the University of Arizona. The first, from my bug class, is that moths and butterflies belong to the insect order Lepidoptera. The other — which I thought flippant at the time — was told to us by my plant identification instructor on our first day of class: “Weeds are merely plants growing in the wrong places.”
Although these are indeed impressive facts, they have never proved to impress at parties, gatherings, or other social situations and are difficult to incorporate into a conversation around the hummus and brie. However, when I’m at work in the dirt, I do often ponder the second one.
Sometimes, what at first look like weeds coming up all over my garden turn out to be volunteer seedlings from existing or neighboring plants. This seems to be more of an occurrence when we have fall and winter rains or if I use overhead watering such as sprinklers instead of drip irrigation. But nonetheless, I try to remind myself to take a second look before yanking them out.