Our thicket is neither pretty nor tidy. If those were requirements for survival, I would have been purged as a child.
It is not the appearance of the thicket that matters, it is its function.  What it does makes it of value.

Things live in the thicket, eat in the thicket and hide in the thicket. Those things matter to me, you see.

A pair of rabbits lives in the protection of the thicket. These two come out in the evenings to graze on grass or eat pieces of Daddy’s apples that have been dropped by careless crows.

I often encounter insects in the thicket. Today, I disturbed a butterfly. This dragonfly was undeterred by my trimming around it.

Birds nest in the thicket. If I spot a nest, I leave that part messy until the season changes. Birds also shelter in it during bad weather.

Once a tiny fawn hid in the thicket while it’s mother wandered elsewhere to feed. The branches of the rhododendrons twist together to make the middle safe from large predators.

Food grows within the thicket. I trim the outer blackberry stalks back, but leave some for foragers. There are pokeberries, too.  The brown thrashers love them. They also love thrashing about in debris under the thicket to find insects.

There is a tiny world inside that thicket. I have pledged to leave it undisturbed in the middle. I just keep the exposed surfaces tidy to placate any picky neighbors. That’s my deal. I plan to keep it.

Yes, the thicket is a bit ugly. But ugly can be useful. Just as pretty can be useless.

FLOW