I showed a friend something I’d written for the People’s Friend and she was most complimentary. She said I could probably write a piece on just about anything, ‘even a daisy’. Well… a challenge can be a good thing so here goes!
Some of us try and keep the garden tidy, mowing the lawn regularly and trimming the bushes, planting flowers and tending to our pots and there’s one thing any gardener can tell you –
You never need to water a weed.
There seems to be some perverse law of nature that currently decrees while other plants can struggle to come along even with copious watering, liberal doses of plant food etc, weeds need no such encouragement. They pop up in the unlikeliest of places, even tiny cracks in the path with almost no soil or moisture. Blossoms that cost you £9.99 or more in the Garden Centre hang despondent while these cheeky rascals spring up tall and vigorous.
As another friend once put it, ‘You mow the lawn and think you’ve given it a close shave and twenty minutes later there are half a dozen daisies smiling up at you!’
Bellis perennis is the European version of the Asteraceae family. In Mediaeval times it was known as ‘Mary’s Rose’. Geoffrey Chaucer called it ‘the eye of day’, possibly because it closes over at night and opens in the sunshine. Larger varieties can be quite effective as a deliberate feature in a flower bed. Leaves can be used in salads and are even reputed to have medicinal qualities.
All of which is fine and good but not when it’s in my lawn. Then it’s a weed.
I didn’t plant it. I didn’t really do anything. It just happened.
And that’s the thing. You have to work at creating a garden and keeping it nice. Weeds appear all on their own and if we don’t watch out they’ll take over and turn our garden back into a jungle!
So in the end of the day it’s a choice between order and chaos. Do we choose and strive for order and beauty or do we choose to do nothing and surrender our life to the weeds?
Solomon, famed for his wisdom, writes in his Old Testament book of Proverbs of observing how while a lazy person folded his hands to sleep his vineyard became overgrown and unfruitful, ‘the ground was covered in weeds’ and poverty approached rapidly!
A more famous Biblical reference is found in Jesus’ parable of the farmer going out to sow the ‘seed’ of God’s message. Some within earshot are non-starters, completely uninterested. Others seem to respond enthusiastically at first but don’t establish strong spiritual roots so under pressure quickly wither.
The ones I find most challenging are the listeners who seem to respond sincerely and are growing well in faith and practise until they’re surrounded and choked by thorny weeds. Jesus likens these weeds to ‘life’s worries, riches and pleasures’, all the other things which make us so busy. It may not be anything inherently bad, some of these weeds even sprout flowers, but the end result is catastrophic for the farmer’s crop or indeed my garden!
So check out those daisies grinning at you from the lawn and learn something. Do nothing, just let life happen and it could soon be a chaotic mess. Weeds don’t need much encouragement.
Choose instead reverence. Remember the first job the Creator gave human beings was to tend the Garden of Eden. Let reverence lead us to diligence in all things, not least godliness.
And lo, Paradise reopens to us!
Some of us try and keep the garden tidy, mowing the lawn regularly and trimming the bushes, planting flowers and tending to our pots and there’s one thing any gardener can tell you –
You never need to water a weed.
There seems to be some perverse law of nature that currently decrees while other plants can struggle to come along even with copious watering, liberal doses of plant food etc, weeds need no such encouragement. They pop up in the unlikeliest of places, even tiny cracks in the path with almost no soil or moisture. Blossoms that cost you £9.99 or more in the Garden Centre hang despondent while these cheeky rascals spring up tall and vigorous.
As another friend once put it, ‘You mow the lawn and think you’ve given it a close shave and twenty minutes later there are half a dozen daisies smiling up at you!’
Bellis perennis is the European version of the Asteraceae family. In Mediaeval times it was known as ‘Mary’s Rose’. Geoffrey Chaucer called it ‘the eye of day’, possibly because it closes over at night and opens in the sunshine. Larger varieties can be quite effective as a deliberate feature in a flower bed. Leaves can be used in salads and are even reputed to have medicinal qualities.
All of which is fine and good but not when it’s in my lawn. Then it’s a weed.
I didn’t plant it. I didn’t really do anything. It just happened.
And that’s the thing. You have to work at creating a garden and keeping it nice. Weeds appear all on their own and if we don’t watch out they’ll take over and turn our garden back into a jungle!
So in the end of the day it’s a choice between order and chaos. Do we choose and strive for order and beauty or do we choose to do nothing and surrender our life to the weeds?
Solomon, famed for his wisdom, writes in his Old Testament book of Proverbs of observing how while a lazy person folded his hands to sleep his vineyard became overgrown and unfruitful, ‘the ground was covered in weeds’ and poverty approached rapidly!
A more famous Biblical reference is found in Jesus’ parable of the farmer going out to sow the ‘seed’ of God’s message. Some within earshot are non-starters, completely uninterested. Others seem to respond enthusiastically at first but don’t establish strong spiritual roots so under pressure quickly wither.
The ones I find most challenging are the listeners who seem to respond sincerely and are growing well in faith and practise until they’re surrounded and choked by thorny weeds. Jesus likens these weeds to ‘life’s worries, riches and pleasures’, all the other things which make us so busy. It may not be anything inherently bad, some of these weeds even sprout flowers, but the end result is catastrophic for the farmer’s crop or indeed my garden!
So check out those daisies grinning at you from the lawn and learn something. Do nothing, just let life happen and it could soon be a chaotic mess. Weeds don’t need much encouragement.
Choose instead reverence. Remember the first job the Creator gave human beings was to tend the Garden of Eden. Let reverence lead us to diligence in all things, not least godliness.
And lo, Paradise reopens to us!
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