Tag Archives: gardening

The Expert Master Gardener: A Reflection on Life and Lavender

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Welcome back to another week of Livin’ the Dream! It’s been a full week of activity… the hubby and I celebrated another wedding anniversary year of not killing each other, and we hosted our friends for a grand gathering and Bar-B-Que at Itsnotta Farm. One of our kids moved into a new place today, and we found a fabulous little nook off the lake to watch sunsets together (aren’t we romantic?) All around, a good time.

On with the muse for this week, though… enough about me. At said Bar-B-Que, I was touring around a friend and showing off my albeit colourful, but disaster of a flower garden. I have a variety of flowers there, but the goldenrod (aka giant ragweed) is about to take over and give my daughter-in-law a severe case of the sneezes. As the friend and I chatted about this and that that I would like to do in the garden, what I want to swap out, what I love etc. etc. it occurred to me how much I really do recognize in the flower world. I know quite a few plants by name and how tall they get, and where they like to be, and when they are in their prime. I’m not sure how I acquired such knowledge over the years… but it’s somewhere in there rattling around in my brain. Huh! I was impressed with even myself.

One of the many varieties of lavender!

Now, I will openly admit, I am certainly not a horticulturist by any stretch of the imagination. I dabble and dig and hope for the best. I know some common plant names, and googled a few, but certainly don’t know the Latin derivatives nor all their uses. I’m learning though. For our anniversary, the hubby and I visited a working lavender farm for a relaxing afternoon. I love lavender, and it’s been on my list for awhile… even though lavender is not in season at the moment, it was fun to walk through the bee loving “bushes”. Did you know there were several varieties of lavender? Buena vista, lavandin, and edelweiss (a white one!) and 450 some odd other varieties! Of lavender alone, people…

Let’s look back at my golden rod mess… golden rod is a “wild flower” … to me, a weed. Along with cosmos, daisies, buttercups and I’m sure you can name a few others. Tiger lilies are also weeds for me… you can’t kill those things! I found out that one of my favourite wild blue flowers (which grows along the road side but never will transplant to my spaces!) is actually a chicory… like the coffee substitute. A lesson I just learned this week. Now just start to let your mind wander a bit to add flowers to your list from mine. What do you know? Roses. Tropical plants, grasses… it goes on and on. And there is a name for every one! I am sure all the gardening books couldn’t put a dent in the list. Let alone the gardener get it all right.

Oh my beloved, do you see the comparison here? Our Master gardener knows not only every tree, flower and blade of grass, but He knows YOU! Every hair on your head, every wrinkle and every scar. He knows your name and why you are here. And He knows all of us. From the beginning of time to the end – God knows us all! I cannot begin to imagine. I have trouble enough keeping my own kids and pets straight… not to mention cousins and extended relatives. Yet, God knows every minute detail about you and me… and cares about it! Like an expert, He tends the hearts of each of us, like a flower farmer tends his rows of lavender. He knows the conditions necessary for us to flourish, and the things that choke us out and cause us not to flower and bloom where we are planted.

I don’t know about you, but this is so encouraging to me. God’s got this. He knows me better than I know myself! Which can be a little frightening, I suppose. Yet, the awesomeness of it, seems to outweigh the fear for me. A deep muse which I don’t understand, but captivates me nonetheless.

So, next time you drive by a field of wildflowers, or pull those “weeds” from your flowerbed, be reminded that there is a Master gardener, who’s got it all figured out!

NEW

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new

/no͞o/

adjective

1.not existing before; made, introduced, or discovered recently or now for the first time. example: “new crop varieties”

2.already existing but seen, experienced, or acquired recently or now for the first time. example: “her new bike”

3.just beginning or beginning anew and regarded as better than what went before. example: “starting a new life”

    OXford Dictionary

    New. New outfit. New Beginning. New month, new season, new house, new experiences. Everyone knows what it is like to experience something new. Anticipation mixed with a little anxiety. Perhaps it’s a thing you’ve always waited for. A dream come true. Perhaps it’s a thing you wish wasn’t happening. A new life lived without someone special. A diagnoses or news you didn’t want to know about. “Already existing but seen for the first time.” The spring season is upon us and I am excited for all the “new” around here.

    Photo by PhotoMIX Company on Pexels.com

    I dug around in my flower garden for a bit yesterday. I have daffodils! We were not here last spring so I have no idea what may pop up. There is lots of new growth happening. I also cut back a bunch of old growth so a few new things can happen. It’s going to be work, work and more work. I think it will be worth it though. I’m excited about the possibilities (and much to the hubby’s chagrin, I have plans). A new couple has arrived in our cedar hedges: a pair of mourning doves. I am thrilled. I love their haunting cries! I hope they nest somewhere close by. Traditionally, spring is a time for “new life” and babies arrive! We’ll see what happens around here. Chicks have been ordered…. We celebrated Easter at the farm this year instead of in the city, with new traditions and family bonds. Things are different as we age. Kids grow up. Parents get older and new aches and pains arrive. Technology is ever creeping forward (sometimes quickly!) and everything seems new. We must adapt and change and keep up. Even if we don’t want to.

    I used to say I hated change. I wanted things to stay the same. I wanted things to stay within my comfort zone; in a place where I had control over them and I could feel safe about this or that. The familiar was a good thing and I didn’t want it to mutate away from what I knew. Now, however, as I grow older, I recognize that things must change. Without it there will be no progress. They say our brains get better as we go through new experiences. Our brain health improves when we learn new things and try and change and adapt. It makes our neurons fire and our brain matter grow. Just think about all those “littles” who soak up new information constantly: their brains develop at a crazy pace.

    Easter weekend had me musing about a few things, one of which was this idea of a new way of life… especially for the disciples. We got talking about Jewish traditions and the new movement of “Christianity” among the early church. Can you imagine the scene where the world as you know it gets turned upside down because of some radical who was crucified and now has been raised from the dead? Can you imagine if they had social media back then? Taylor Swift or Kate Middleton wouldn’t even be on the radar. Jesus would be all the talk.

    Photo by Thirdman on Pexels.com

    Yet, Christ followers would have to adapt to a whole new way of life after the events of Easter. Three years of radical existence climaxes into political upheaval, arrests, scattering and thoughts of “what now?!” Do you default to what you know? Go back to the old way of life? Do you trudge forward, taking on the risks that may lie ahead? Do you hide and wait it out, hoping things will settle down and go away? I suppose all the options were available and each one did, as we would, their own thing.

    I’m not sure there is a “right or wrong” outcome to all things new. There is no real way to approach it. Time brings change and there is nothing we can do to avoid it. Let’s embrace it, together, shall we? Join us each week here and keep up with all the crazies of our new country abode and all the changes we take on! I’m on all the social media, too, because it is important to learn new things. Like blogging, and reels, and writing, and social media. Blessings, beloveds.

    Want to see how my writing has changed? Take a journey back to the early days of mittonmusings. Here is a good one about new things!

    Seasons of Change

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    As many of you know, our little urban garden is up and running again. Thanks to lockdown and Covid-19, we were ahead of our game and started seeds indoors this year. As always, there are learning curves with such things and we’ve had various degrees of success. Traditionally, the long weekend in May is a fairly “safe” time to transition seedlings to outside. So, last week we did just that… off our little seed babies went into the ground with high hopes of bountiful growth. And then it snowed.

    Frost damage on Corn crop (photo from agriculture.com)

    I see my neighbour (who has a beautiful garden) promptly shielded her tomatoes with warming pots. A seasoned farmer I follow on Instagram threw tarps over her raised beds in a last ditched effort to protect her asparagus that finally will be big enough to harvest after waiting for three long years. We did not. Our second attempt at scraggly corn shoots look very shriveled. The others may survive with a little prayer and a lot of hope.

    “Farming” is a risky business. I recently searched out what our “growing zone” is, as this seems to be a fact I should know. The website starts out with “…To determine zone number, Canada uses a formula that consists of 7 climate variables. Canada’s hardiness map is divided into 9 zones…” and continues on for about 9 paragraphs and ends with “…website includes several links intended to clarify the hardiness zones, but which seem instead to be very complicated and confusing.” 1 Ya think?? Hats off to the men and women who make their livelihood on the whims of the weather and their wage on the likelihood of storms and forest fires. They say that in Canada, we can have all four seasons in one week… and it is true. Weather is unpredictable. Life is unpredictable too.

    Which had me musing about the seasons of life this week. Psychology tells us there are “stages” we go through in our average life span — seasons of growth and development, seasons of change. Many of you have eluded to these in your comments as we muse along together. That’s the beauty of exploring and sharing our faith journeys, too… we encourage each other as we go. The scriptures are scattered with references, not only to the physical four seasons we see throughout the year, but also in our “spiritual seasons” as well. God reminds us through nature how our world is in constant change… and He designed it that way.

    I often question: why? Why did He design it that way? Why do things have to change? Why do we have to grown old? Why has He allowed the corona virus to infect the world at this moment? Why did He choose to come to earth at the moment He did? What will the future hold for us? Seasons of bitter cold, and seasons of preparation, growth and warmth. Each season holds something to offer, but none of them are ever perfect. Weeds grow just as rapidly in summer as the sunflowers do. Yet, the constant through it all is God alone. James 1:17 tells us there is no variation or shadow of change in the Father. We can take courage in this thought. Even in the midst of life’s seasonal changes.

    My zinnias (a first time plant for me!) have sprouted cute little dichotomous leaves all tucked up in a row. I’m not sure how the frost will affect them. I’m also not sure what life will hold for us in the next year, or the next month, or even this week ahead… but we move forward through the season, and grow and adapt just as God designed it to be. As will you. Blessings fellow seedlings!

    1. (2020, https://www.torontomastergardeners.ca/askagardener/plant-hardiness-zones/)