My Garden; My Heart

I love flowers. In my dreams, I have one of those lush English flower gardens. It is a veritable paradise of color and fragrant blooms. In reality, I don’t actually have a green thumb. In fact, I think it tends more toward the dark shades of brown. I can kill a plant faster than you can say Miracle-gro!

When we first moved to Texas twenty-five years ago, I planted the things I knew and loved. However, since we moved from upstate New York where it tends to be a tad cooler than southern Texas, they didn’t fare very well. Another thing I hadn’t counted on was the deer – ah the deer. I like them; I really do. They are so cute, especially here in Texas. I thought everything was bigger in Texas. Not true with the deer. They are dainty little critters (apologies to all the guys who are avid hunters) with soft brown eyes.
They like flowers too.

One spring, in a burst of gardening energy, I cleared the area under a cluster of oak trees we have in our front yard. Then my husband and son build a cute little stone border around the area for me. I bought and planted about two dozen impatiens plants. In my mind I could already see the beautiful mass of pink and white flowers skirting the huge oaks. It took me forever to plant them. My back was killing me by the time I finished, not to mention my poor old knees. However, it would all be worth it when those flowers bloomed.

The next morning I awoke to find dozens of little green stems sticking out of the ground. I may as well have sent out printed invitations: Attention deer. Linda is serving a special delicacy tonight – fresh impatiens. Bring a friend! So I learned to look for deer resistant plants as well as native plants. Just to be on the safe side, my husband fenced in a little area for my flower garden, and I started all over again.

To begin with we planted three crepe myrtles. They were supposed to be miniatures, but I don’t think anyone told them that. They grew to be about eight feet tall and had a tendency to poke people about the head and shoulders as they were walking up our front walk.  We decided they had to go feeling that eyes were an important thing to protect. My husband cut them down, and I planted Irises, Lantana, Salvia and a couple of rose bushes. To my complete amazement, they all did very well. My garden was looking good!

Then one morning I noticed them – crepe myrtle shoots growing where I had planted my flowers. My husband had done his best to dig up all the roots, but evidently he wasn’t able to get them all. So…I pulled up the shoots. And they grew again. I pulled them up….they continued to grow. I wasn’t able to get down to the roots and dig them up.

Another reason I am not very good with plants is that I want everything to be simple and easy. When I get something new, and it has a manual as thick as a dictionary I get discouraged before I even begin. I just want to be able to push a couple of buttons and have everything good to go. That doesn’t work very well with appliances, and it certainly doesn’t work with growing things. I just don’t take the time to research gardening. I want to dig the hole, put the plant in the ground, feed and water it when necessary – and that’s enough already. I want a beautiful garden.

It also tends to get a bit hot here. I am great in the garden when it is cool – not so much when it’s hot. I tend to neglect the more physical aspects of gardening when it gets into the summer months. So I stopped pulling up crepe myrtle shoots because it’s just too hot to be on my knees in the dirt yanking on plants that simply refuse to give up easily. Before long the crepe myrtle shoots became crepe myrtle PLANTS and crowded out everything else.  Because of my neglect, the flowers I planted with such hope were suffering.

I got to thinking the other day that the Lord has a lesson for me here.  As important as it is to do the necessary work to have a lovely garden, so it is within my heart. To have a heart that is beautiful, thriving and pleasing in His sight I need to do the necessary work. I need time alone with Him, time in prayer and in the Word so that He can plant the good seed in my heart and nurture it.   I also need to do the hard work of keeping the things out of my heart that are not supposed to be growing there. It may not seem like anything big or awful – at first. However, if I allow it to grow it will soon begin to crowd out the good things.  I need to dig down and pull it out by the roots.

“Oh the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers.But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.  They are like trees planted along the riverbank bearing fruit each season.  Their leaves never wither and they prosper in all they do.”

                                                                                                      Psalms 1:1-3 (NLT)

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