Interview with Viewfinder Magazine

Bryan was interviewed about his views on “weeds” in the garden by Kirsten Munez of Scenic Hudson’s Viewpoint Magazine. To read the publication, follow this link. The full interview below:

KM: Why is it important to reframe your approach to weeds in the garden? How can this help the health of your garden, and nature in general?

BQ: I think it’s important to reframe how we think about weeds because the word itself already puts us in the wrong mindset. Most people use “weed” as a pejorative noun, as if it automatically means “bad plant,” and that comes either from a pretty limited understanding of plants in general, or from the overconfident idea that a garden should be a fixed construct where any unexpected plant is a problem. When we label something a weed, we tend to remove it automatically without asking what it actually is or what role it might be playing. We also miss opportunities that might allow our landscapes to evolve into something even better.

In my work, I try not to use “weed” as a noun at all. But as a verb — to weed — I think of it more like tending or stewarding the land. It’s less about erasing plants and more about paying attention and making thoughtful choices about what stays and what goes. That shift alone changes how we care for a garden.

The truth is that many of the plants that pop up on their own can be helpful. They can add nutrients to the soil, protect or insulate the ground, attract pollinators, or even provide food or medicine. Once you slow down enough to learn what they are, you start to see that they’re often not problems and, in fact, can make your garden much more interesting and productive. The earth is funny that way, just when you think you have everything all figured out, mother nature comes in and teaches you new lessons- if you are able to listen. Of course, there are situations where a new plant can become a real problem, which is exactly why paying attention and identifying species early matters.

And I don’t really like separating gardens from “nature,” or even leaning too heavily on the word itself. It often gets used as a kind of vocabulary crutch, a catch-all term for anything non-human, which flattens the complexity of what we’re actually talking about. The truth is, we’re part of nature ourselves, and our gardens are part of that same living system. If we slow down and try to be more precise with our language, we often realize that “nature” can actually distract us from what’s really happening. When we work with these plants instead of constantly fighting them, we create better landscapes. The benefits aren’t always immediate or just for us, but over time — sometimes generations — they support pollinators, soil life, and the larger environment which our future generations will hopefully depend on. This is a topic our culture needs to work on. 

So re-framing weeds really means shifting from control to stewardship. That mindset helps the garden thrive and, more broadly, supports the health of the living world we’re part of.

KM: What does dandelion look like? Why should you leave it, and how can it benefit your garden?

BQ: The yellow flowers and the globular seed clusters that are fun to blow in the wind are easy ways to identify a dandelion. It is a bit more difficult to identify them before flowering, but you can look for a flat, rosette-like leafing pattern and deeply lobed leaves. As seedlings, they are much harder to identify.

Dandelions got a bad reputation in the last hundred years. My understanding is that there was a narrative pushed by the herbicide and lawn care industries in favor of the perfect “American lawn”. That effort made “weed-free” lawns a status symbol in our communities. In reality, dandelions are a very nutrient-dense food sold in many grocery stores. They also have nice hardy taproots that bring up minerals for other plants and are an important early spring forage for some pollinators. I suggest people leave it in their lawns- why worry about yellow flowers interrupting turfgrass? A century ago, New Yorker’s used to go to Central Park to enjoy the dandelion blooms! 

KM: How can you identify clover? What are the benefits of leaving it in your garden?

BQ: Clovers, of which there are many types, all tend to have three delicate leaves. Some bloom white, others red, pink, and purple. Clover is used by farmers in intercropping and rotational cultivation who want to stabilize their soils while adding nitrogen. If you dig up the roots of a clover plant you will see tiny nodules on their roots. Those nodules are where a lot of the nitrogen-rich biomass accumulates. When the plant dies, those nutrients are released into the soil and benefit other plants.

It is a great plant to plant under certain vegetables because it does not compete with them for nutrients while stabilizing and shading soils. Pollinators love their flowers, too. It is also a perfect crop to seed over disturbed ground prior to establishing gardens or lawns because it is so good at improving soil conditions in just a few months. 

KM: How can you identify chicory? What are the benefits of leaving it in your garden?

BQ: Chicory has beautiful little blue and lavender flowers that open in the morning and close at night. The flowers last most of the growing season, too. It came to North America about 300 years ago from Europe and Asia. Its leaves look a lot like dandelions but are rougher, hairier, and thicker. They too have deep taproots that are really hard to pull after establishment. But unlike dandelion, their stems can grow up to 4’ tall, most often with a pronounced lean towards sunlight or open growing space. The flowers often come up in the second year of the plant’s life, so they can kind of just chill on the ground the first season while they accumulate energy.

Chicory is best known as a coffee substitute, which is made from the taproot, but it is also considered a powerful nervine in many herbalism traditions, often used as an ingredient in tea. You can also finely chop the fresh leaves and add to salad for a bitter taste and digestive aid.

KM: How can you identify goldenrod? How can it benefit your garden?

BQ: Ah, goldenrod, one of our most underappreciated plants. And of all the plants in this interview, perhaps one of the most impactful in gardens because of its size and ability to reproduce. You can identify it through its rigid, tough stalks covered in a whirling pattern of leaves and its fall golden color. Normally they grow in strong clumps or colonies, and they kind of gain strength by growing together—the stalks working together to stay upright in the wind. There are many different species of goldenrod in our area but they mostly follow this description.

People often confuse ragweed and goldenrod. Ragweed does not get golden flowers; its flowers stay green. That is one way to tell the difference. Also, while ragweed is a major cause of allergies, goldenrod is not. Goldenrod carries a very thick pollen (which bees love) but does not mobilize in the air as easily as ragweed.

Goldenrod is a native plant, and a foundational one at that. It provides food for pollinators almost until winter and, along with its close friend Aster, is critical for the survival of bees and wasps. It is a very wild plant but is kind of pushy, so best to give it space in your garden alongside other tough pollinator attractants. It is not something you would want to intermix with things like tomatoes or greens.

KM: In the Hudson Valley, what is one other native plant that’s considered a weed (but is actually beneficial) that’s not mentioned here? What are the benefits of leaving it in your garden?

BQ: There are so many options to choose from! Personally, I have been really into yarrow lately. It is easy to grow and divide, but it also does not get too tall so I can grow it in close proximity to other species. It is super drought tolerant, and the last few years we have had some pretty severe dry spells. I like that it shades the soil and provides lush refuge to all sorts of beneficial insects even when there has been no rain for a month. It also has really delicate little white flowers which look striking at sunrise and sunset when the angle of sunlight is lowest, kind of like a shimmering bright pattern (which is easiest to appreciate while you are low to the ground weeding, haha).

Yarrow is famous for its use as a medicinal herb. It's said that Achilles carried a pouch of it with him in Ancient Greece to stop bleeding on the battlefield. I use it in tea with honey; it has a taste that wakes me up and is uplifting. Yarrow is a circumboreal plant, meaning its range expanded during ice ages between continents when seas were lower. It originated in Eurasia but has been in North America long before humans, developing its own sub-species and then introgressing with introduced yarrow from other continents. As someone who works with native plant questions all the time, I love this reminder that the evolutionary Tree of Life isn’t black and white. It’s complex and interconnected beyond our understanding, asking us to rethink how we define belonging and how species have co-evolved over time.

Lots of people confuse yarrow with other plants, especially Queen Anne’s Lace, which is another really cool species often considered a weed, but we don’t have time to get into it!