How to Grow Weeds in Your Lawn

A guide to fostering your crazy, wild ideas, thoughts, and creativity.

My lawn is full of weeds. My wife disapproves, my neighbors judge them, and my Home Owner’s Association (HOA) never seems to run out of paper to mail their complaints. I can’t blame them, though. Some of the weeds in my yard are grown enough to go to college or pay bills.

In all honesty, I have tried to defeat these weeds. But, no matter what I do, they keep coming back. Every month I search for answers and try new methods. In a week or so, I find out that either the method had zero impact on killing the weeds or I find out they loved it and grew even faster. Aside from lighting my yard on fire and explaining to the fire department later, I’ve decided to let my yard be filled with weeds.

I have graciously accepted my humble defeat and now choose to romanticize about the weeds in my yard. If you can’t beat them join them. Why not? I’ve never met anything so unique, defiant, and resilient. Maybe I’m the lucky one to have a lawn full of weeds. Out of all the lawns these weeds could have chosen, they’ve chosen to torment me.

Then, I read the Originals: How Nonconformists Move the World by Adam Grant. This book was a great read which helped me see symbolism between the weeds in my yard and my creativity.

A weed, by definition, is just an unwanted plant. Anything can be a weed depending on the perspective. If I wanted a garden of squash and a rose began to sprout, the rose could be considered a weed.

How many roses have I tried to kill because I planned for squash? Or, how many thoughts, ideas, and dreams have been destroyed because I feared someone else would call them a weed? I could have been growing a lawn of beautiful life, but because someone didn’t see a money tree, I labeled my yard as unwanted, full of weeds.

I’m tired of living a life that hampers my creative abilities. If I want to call myself a creator, I need to create.

After spending so much time trying to rid my lawn of weeds, I now know what I need to do to keep them alive. Using reverse weedology, here’s a guide to fostering creative ideas and growing weeds in your mind.

Don’t plant grass, let weeds grow naturally

When my wife and I moved into our home, our backyard was a mixture of sand and dirt. Our home builder provided a grassy front yard but left us to figure out what to do with the backyard. Strapped for cash, we went to our family for answers. My PawPaw was the one to give us great wisdom.

“Grass was here before us. It’ll grow without us.”

He was right. Grass did grow. Within a year, my backyard was filled with grass, an unwanted grass. We were expecting the beautiful, lush, and even blades of St. Augustine grass, but instead, we were given an ecosystem of different types of weeds ranging in size, shape, color, and unfortunately, smell.

To combat the rise of weeds, we saved and bought as much sod as we could. With the money we had, we were able to sod a third of our yard. Within a year, the St. Augustine grass slowly began to take over two-thirds of the yard. Still not as much as I’d hope, but the yard has come a long way.

If you want to foster your creativity, let it come to you. Your creativity will manifest naturally, you don’t need to plant it. The more you begin to plant someone’s thoughts in your head, the more you’ll begin to lose your uniqueness. In some cases, copying and pasting may not even work for you. Your soil may not be compatible. Don’t worry, though. You were already building a beautiful lawn of weeds before you began copying and pasting. All you need to do is supply your creativity with what is needed to sustain it, water and nutrients. If you take care of your body, your thoughts will come.

Don’t maintain your lawn frequently

I rarely mowed my lawn in my early stages of homeownership. My son was a newborn and needed every second of my attention and I have allergies. My son is a decent excuse, but he’d probably disagree. I do have bad allergies, though.

Regardless of my excuses, the weeds in my yard flourished and skyrocketed in height, becoming the monstrosities my HOA loathe.

To prevent weeds from reaching over the fence, you need to mow frequently. According to Scotts, mowing at a higher lawn mower setting will prevent weeds from arising by depriving them of sunlight. Weeds need sunlight to grow. If your desired blades of grass maintain their health at a higher height, the seeds from weeds will be covered and unable to fight for sunlight.

Instead of chopping down your creativity before it sees the light of day, provide it with sunlight and show it to the world. Share your artwork on Instagram, post your newly written song on YouTube, and publish that article that you shelved on Medium.

It doesn’t matter if the piece is not your best, at least you’re creating. Hiding your creativity or deleting it does nothing for you. And who knows, someone may enjoy something that you deem a weed in your mind. In the end, it may just be unwanted to you. Even if no one enjoys your work, the more sunlight you give to all of your creations, the more building blocks you’ll have to create a beautiful landscape.

Don’t pull weeds from the roots

I’ve read this countless times on the internet. The only sure way to kill a weed is if you remove it from the roots. The roots are the source of the weed. If it is still intact, no matter what damage you inflict, it will always grow from the root.

Some of your ideas may not be ready for the world to see. And, that’s okay. The best creators have either mastered patience or are just lucky, as the Originals suggest.

Your creativity is resilient like a weed. As long as its roots remain intact, your creativity will restore itself from stored DNA. It may look a little different, but with timing and a little change, your product has a chance to improve.

If you want your creativity to flourish, don’t pull from the roots. Sometimes, the world may not be ready for your ideas. The sight of a six-foot-tall sunflower will look completely out of place in a yard of one-inch high grass. If you can, place those radical ideas on the back burner until you can fully support it. Then it’ll be ready to fully shine.

Never use Round-Up

As I transition to a more sustainable lifestyle, it pains me to say that at the lowest point in my war with weeds, I used Round-Up. I couldn’t stand the sight of these weeds anymore and I decided the best option was to nuke them.

Within days, the weeds diminished taking the surrounding grass with it. Killing one weed created an epicenter death that slowly began to take surrounding blades of grass with it.

We all carry a gallon of Round-Up when it comes to creating. However, what makes us pull the trigger may be vary from person to person.

For me, it’s myself.

I’ve nuked so many of my creative ideas before they could even make it out of my head. I’ve done this so much to the point in which my mind is still recovering from my own nuclear fallout. Every time I think I’ve learned my lesson, I check the stats of an article that I poured my soul into, find out its dismal performance, and I’m ready to push the button again.

As I’m writing this, I see how stupid it is to use Round-Up on my weeds. Round-Up is just another excuse to not be the unique individual you are. If we are called to be creators then we need to create. Be a creator! Unemployment has reached 0% for those who want to destroy, but you have the abilities and skills to be different. All you need to do is find what your Round-Up is. Once found, put it on the highest shelf in your garage where it is out of sight, out of mind. You don’t need it. You can put it right next to your impulsively bought As Seen On TV lawn product that doesn’t work, but you can’t tell that to your spouse. She’ll judge you.

Conclusion

Beethoven, Shakespeare, and your favorite comedian are known for their great works. But, if you looked at everything they’ve created, I’m sure you’ll find a few weeds in their lawns. Maybe one of their songs wasn’t mediocre, their play was just decent, or you didn’t laugh at the joke. You might even realize their whole yard was full of weeds in your eyes. Yet, you still enjoy their work and call them geniuses. It won’t take long to understand that the amount of weeds that one yard has is irrelevant if the yard produces one beautiful plant.

If you have a lawn full of weeds, so be it. At least, you’re able to grow something. You’re able to grow life. And with time, who knows, someone might see one of your many weeds as a tree.

Even though, a money tree is a perfect place for shade, I hope you grow a tree of life that spreads seeds to someone else’s lawn. Because if everybody has a lawn full of weeds, maybe my house won’t look so bad and my HOA will leave me alone.