You are so right - beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so is usefulness! We can learn from the weed to be consistent, to thrive even if we get not much care - but like a lot of weeds we have unnoticed beauty and unknown usefullness :)

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In our region there is a weed that's really a pest - if you've got in your garden the only way to get rid of it is getting an excavator and exchange the upper three meters of the soil. But who wants that (and has the money for that)? But most people have children... so we sat in the springtime and got rid of not only every green leaf that showed. Even more important was not missing a single piece of the roots because in a few days there would be a new shoot. Tearing these roots out were so laborious and annoying because you pulled and pulled and they didn't end... My mother used to joke that on the other end of this root somewhere in China someone was pulling right in that moment, too ;)

But twenty years on and recently we learnt that this unimpressive little weed has a lot of Vitamin C etc. and since it grows early in March and April (where the rest of the herbs are just starting their growth) they are perfect to be gathered and put into your vegetables or over a soup. We still don't like that it wants to overgrow everything but now we have a use for it and let this plant have a corner of our garden for itself. And it really is quite nice to look at has beautiful blossoms :)