Other People's Gardens

 

 

I am not a real gardener. I don't know anything about really making things grow. I do however, have a crazy penchant for sticking things in the ground and hoping they make it. This week I received a bunch of irises that Andy's co-worker dug up from their yard. Alan and his wife are the kind of gardeners that actually keep up with when you are supposed to divide rhizomes and such.

As I worked to transplant these new additions, I admired the day lilies that my friend had given me when she also divided her plants, four pink crepe myrtles that someone else unloaded, and a wispy wisteria vine from my mother-in-law's trainer at the gym.

I also asked my parents-in-law if I could dig up a few of the cannas that had settled themselves down by the lake, and they threw in a ginger lily that someone had given them. On my back porch is a free-to-a-good-home elder tree that the nursery was giving away as it will be cold soon. It hasn't died yet, so I am happy to enjoy it as long as it lives. I stick the past beautiful ferns and mums in the ground too when they are past their happy stage in pots, and some have chosen to thrive.


These are all fledgling plants, but in my romanticism, I hope to one day see towering canopies of pink lining my backyard. I love imaging what they may look like if they make it.

It is harder for me to have long range vision with my children. I wish I weren't so impatient that they learn to speak kindly to one another and remember to pick up their stuff on the floor now. We continue to study James at church, and I really enjoyed yesterday's sermon. May I have the same patience James described in chapter 5... the kind of hope that waits, like a farmer or gardener. The kind of patience that hopes, like the prophets, who could only do their part and wait to see how their messages would be received; the patience of Job, that endures in weariness and struggle.

May I do my part of watering and feeding and checking for dangerous "caterpillars", and may our children thrive in time as well.