Through foraging, one develops an affinity for the edible and medicinal plants that make up one's allies. But this affinity casts into relief the disregard for those "weeds" and those nameless scores of plants one tramples underfoot traversing the forest, which before then remained invisible. And one takes this awareness back to the garden.
One can't know every last plant, or at least have an affinity for every last plant, as oneself and one's affinities have to take up space too. Where edible and medicinal plants must be cultivated, less desirable plants have to be removed, as nature abhors vacuums and one has to enter this state of nature mid-process.
Through foraging and gardening, one seeks to keep plants alive and safe, say by picking off bad leaves or harvesting what one can without destroying the plant, unless the whole plant must be pulled up whole. And one knows in one's heart that pulling up a plant by its roots - unless its a transplant - necessarily dooms the whole plant, whereas simply pulling off leaves or fruits can allow for regeneration and recovery.
But the tenderness for ally plants and the pain for removing undesirable plants can exist side by side. That everything is precious does not preclude that some of it must thrive or subsist and some of it must go. This seems a healthier spiritual relation to the earth to me at least.
