On Weed Control and DEI
It's not politics. It's ecological succession. Take a cue, and take heart. (AND ACTION.)
This piece could go one of two directions: full-on ranting tirade jammed with expletives. Or it could go soft and tender, pulling at heartstrings and tugging at hope. I contemplate which one will have the intended effect.
I TAP TAP TAP furiously, erupting sentences full of force, vehemence, squinty conviction. They have words like rotting, decimation, idiocy.
I erase them all.
I have decided to tell you instead about my backyard. It has this big, wide spread of beautiful green grass, which, when I initially beheld it, I recognized as first of all irresponsible for drought-ridden California and second of all nostalgic and idyllic and a guilty pleasure I refused to be shamed by. We moved into the house with this backyard exactly three years ago. Mid-April was the best possible season to move in, because the spring rains had made this lawn appear glorious: luscious, sumptuously green and feathery soft on my bare feet. I had visions of blankets spread and balls strewn in the grass: leisurely afternoons spent reading and snacking and kicking and catching.
Within weeks, the problems appeared. Spiky little weed heads rising up with smirks between my tender, privileged toes. Thicker tomorrow. Sharper the following day. I diligently picked them out by hand, imperturbable. Only a few minutes of easy effort… until it was more. Hours next, then several. I channeled the frustrations of my life into each satisfying expunge of twiddly roots and clinging soil. Miniature win after miniature, symbolic win. Soon, I was spending entire afternoons bent in half, promising my child “just one more” at least 50 more times while I tried to clear a swathe for our blanket. “Mama WHO CARES!” they’d whine. “I just want to play!”
Exasperated, I texted my sister, a professional horticulturalist specializing in native species and ecological restoration. “Is this safer than Roundup?” I asked, sending photos of the Spectracide I’d found. I wasn’t a lunatic, obviously; I’d never use glyphosate… but this was my lawn. I had earned it. I deserved to protect it.
“Ha. It doesn’t contain glyphosate. But… what’s your end goal, sis?”
“I want those obnoxious weeds out of here! They’re taking over everything!” I pouted, petulantly.
“The image of a pristine, manicured lawn is a myth,” she squawked back at me. “You’ll never win! It’s called ecological succession. Cue the music 🤡.” She sent a funny gif of Logan Roy, and I remembered the dissonant piano keys flittering nervously over the menacing base and chugging drum beat of Succession’s opening credits.
I sunk my face into a pillow. I grappled. What’s your end goal, sis?
Ecological succession is the process by which an environment naturally evolves over time, such that the mix of species within it inevitably changes. As the University of Chicago explains, “Ecological succession is a fundamental concept in ecology,” the study of which was pioneered there by Henry Chandler Cowles. It is “the process by which natural communities replace (or ‘succeed’) one another over time. For example, when an old farm field in the midwestern U.S. is abandoned and left alone for many years, it gradually becomes a meadow, then a few bushes grow, and eventually, trees completely fill in the field, producing a forest.”
Only natural disturbances can reset the predestined process: a wildfire sweeps the area clean, for example, or a lava flow or glacial retreat creates or exposes a literal blank slate of rock without soil. Even then, again, though, we’ll witness the inevitable arrival of lichen, creating conditions for grasses, which generate the nutrients for shrubs, then trees, eventually a forest, again and again, history repeating itself…
I thought of ecological succession this week, heard that TV series’ brilliant opening credits again, contemplated. “What’s your end goal, sis?”
I questioned my insistence on uniformity, in my yard, of all things. Wondered at my ignorant and spoiled craving for an unsullied oasis. Forced myself to consider why this felt so damn important, why I was so very indignant, why I very much believed I deserved that perfect and pure lawn.
“It’s a myth. You’ll never win,” sis had later repeated emphatically, on a visit when we were drinking Txakoli on the patio, watching the kids throw rocks into said grass. She explained that in her line of horticulture, they asked questions like: Why are we railing against the weeds anyway? Where did this goal to dominate our landscape come from? (🤯) And what if our goal wasn’t to dominate our landscape but instead to live, kindly, compassionately, within it? Horticulturalists like my sister advocate for more restoration of native plants, more embracing of eco-diversity, more acceptance of what we’d been culturally groomed to perceive as “messy” but really was a richer, healthier landscape. More abundance, less domination.
And so, I thought of ecological succession this week. I thought of it as I watched petty leaders and cowardly followers ignorantly deny—and strive ardently to stamp out—its beautiful, universal, ordained-on-high inevitability. I thought of it as I caught my deeply ingrained, unconscious bias pipe up with fury at the dandelions lifting their sunny faces to the sky, “sullying” my pretty Napa yard. I thought of it when I considered the manicured Napa wineries and chateaux yards around me… and beyond.
I wondered about our collective desire to keep our lawns pristine, to keep our homepage banners and board members aligned with the political mood of the moment, to keep our zhuzhy labels apolitical, to keep our purportedly sustainable and politely performative companies in or out of the DEI spotlight as if it were that easy. As if we could be so with vineyard pesticides. As if it were that unimpactful to spray Roundup this year but not next, and again the following. We push our cart up the hardware store aisle, promising, “I’m not racist”—even while we buy the Spectracide—“but this is my lawn.” We’re talking figuratively, of course…
I remember—processing, wrestling with my fears and my awareness and my progressiveness and also my gaping lack thereof… it was never our lawn to begin with. I decide to keep learning—What’s your end goal, sis?—to ask if there are ways I can learn to accept a bit of a mess in exchange for a richer, healthier landscape. I do not buy the Spectracide.
More abundance, less domination.
My toes are less sensitive to the spiky grasses this year. My child is thrilled we are finally playing ball.
For a meaningful conversation on Social Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion—and why it counts as one of six pillars of truly sustainable winegrowing leadership, I encourage you to join me at the Napa RISE Climate & Wine Symposium on May 6. While I’m certain this particular event will, as in all years past, be the least popular and least well-attended of the six-day forum, I dare you to prove that lousy and disappointing fact wrong: Get tickets. (Plus, you’ll get to meet the inimitable Jermaine Stone!)
I beg you. Do better. Show up. Unless you’re too busy treating your lawn that day…
Disclosure: I spoke at Napa RISE in 2023 when my Napa wine shop won the event’s Leadership Award for Social Justice, Diversity & Inclusion. This year, I’ll be attending in a journalistic capacity with a media pass. All Resilient Wine editorial content is produced independently of RISE and is not endorsed by that organization or its members.