IT'S WAR ON WEEDS

Weeds are amazing. More often than not, they're beautiful. A vacant lot with chest-high barley rippling in the wind is a glorious thing, especially when it's jumping with sparrows feasting on the seeds. Add to beauty weeds' benefit. They do so much cooling, aerating and stabilizing of vacant lots and roadsides that Harvard horticulturist Peter Del Tredici has taken to celebrating weeds as "spontaneous urban vegetation."

By Emily Green

March 13, 2010