In Into the Weeds, Tama Matsuoka Wong, master forager and gardener, empowers you to rethink your relationship with gardening and embrace a gentler, less rigid approach to tending the land and encouraging plants, even if you didn’t plant them yourself.

Into the Weeds is part practical, part philosophical, with information for building simple structures like borders and beds with wild wood scraps, a pared down plant ID section for some of the most common edible, useful, plants in the world, and recipes for teas, tinctures, and cocktails. A project on making wildflower leis shows how one made with the “scrap” flowers can be just as beautiful as the one made from showy plants, thereby challenging the way we engage with and value the plants around us.

As the author writes, “All land, be it a formal hardscaped botanical garden, public park, office courtyard, backyard, front yard, farmland, community plot, urban lot, a windowsill pot…can shelter a little wilderness, a piece of paradise.”