Weeds grow, well, like weeds, out of the cracks of the pavement with nothing but municipal runoff to keep them alive. Meanwhile I have to work tirelessly to keep my tomato and pepper plants happy and fruitful. Why do weeds dominate a garden?
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On the surface level the issue could be attributed to the desirable plants often being desirable due to being bred for desirable properties, which often comes at the cost of survival properties. People also often try to grow desirable plants outside their optimal climates, reducing chances of survival even further. Lumping many plants of the same type together also increases suspectibility to pests.
However, sometimes you get a plant that is both desirable and good at survival, (raspberries?) and these are what reveals that the issue is more fundamental: plants good at survival are, generally speaking, those good at spreading. If a desirable plant spreads outside the desired area, it quickly becomes non-desirable.
So it isn’t that weeds are good at survival, it’s that plants good at survival (and spreading) are weeds.
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