....especially from the plant's point of view.
On a recent weekend, I looked enviously on my mom's garden. Although different in many ways, she and I both prefer a "cottage" garden. Think lots of blooms...daisy, day lilies, Columbine, and forget-me-nots. I love those little blue friendly flowers. A cottage garden. That's what we call it. Other people call it messy, overgrown, bursting with chaos. Of course, it's much easier for my mom to achieve this look in her garden than in mine. She lives in a wonderfully wet, temperate climate with really rich good soil. I, on the other hand have to rely on artificial rain (a costly sprinkler system) and trucked in soil. Her blooms start appearing at the end of February....I'm still shoveling snow then.
So when I saw all these beautiful lavender plants and day lilies growing like wildflowers, I had to have some. Most of the plants were overcrowded and needed thinning out anyway. Mom generously attacked her garden with a pitchfork and shovel, loading me up with large transplanting victims. Within hours of returning home, I had a brand new flower bed neatly planted with beautiful, although wilted, plants.
All looked good for a few days. Some of the transplants started to pick up there little faces to the sun, and putting down roots. But soon it became apparent that some of the larger, more established plants hadn't done so well. They started to turn brown, the lavender plants turned grey and began dropping their thin leaves.
As I was removing the thoroughly dead plants, I began thinking about when I've been uprooted. Moving to a new town, & learning the role of a mom were major uprootings for me. But following God's voice into this way of following Jesus, this organic/emergent church has been a similiar uprooting. My roots in traditional church run deep. This has been good and bad. The stories of Jesus, memorized verses, and songs learned while young have been refreshing and nourishing during the drought times. But, on the other hand, those deep roots were used to really rich soil, and easy water. Being moved into the harsher environment of "the world" was a shock to my system. I've had to adapt to my environtment, finding nutrients and water in unexpected circumstances and times. Some might argue that I should have just stayed where I was originally planted. I don't think so....I would've crowded someone else.
The Master Gardener (thankfully more adept then myself) transplanted me, knowing that eventually I would "bloom where I was planted."
My garden has surprised me this year. I rarely get out to it....we've been doing a major remodel at the coffeehouse. My care of it has been an occasional weeding frenzy while talking on the phone, or rushing out to grab a handful of greens for dinner. Even without daily supervision, we've manage to harvest lettuce, turnips, cabbage, raspberries, and carrots. Corn was waist high by the fourth of July. And of course, there will be more squash and zucchini than anyone needs. All I can say for the success of it this year is a big thank you to whoever invented automatic watering systems! That, and years of compost and hard work.
