When talents were handed out in Heaven, there were several lines that I skipped.
Gardening was one of those.
As far as green thumbs are considered,
Mine is a varying shade of black.
I’m not kidding.
Take, Hostas, for example…
a few years ago, I had a friend dividing her hostas, and offered to share.
Hostas.
Easy.
I mean, seriously, they are the one plant that you can’t kill, right??
Well… I killed it.
Which, now that I look at it, is a type of talent. When it’s touted as the one plant that is un-killable… then being able to actually kill it is some sort of (sordid) talent, right??
Fast forward 2 years, one slightly productive, and one miserably failed garden attempt,
and we move into a new house…
which is surrounded by…
Hostas.
Yep.
The unkillable plant that I can’t seem to save.
The owner had said she wanted landscaping that was hardy and low-maintanance.
She didn’t count on ‘ole black thumb buying her beautifully surrounded by hostas-house.
We went through season one, and they actually came up… and lived!
(Thanks only to the fact that we also inherited an automatic sprinkler system from them)
Open season two…
And while the rest of the world’s hostas are starting to come alive and bring forth their green pointy starts,
Mine were still, well…
Dead.
To add insult to injury, at a meeting, one of the women was talking about how she was going to need to divide her hostas the next day.
Good grief! You mean some are so robust that they need to divide this soon?! She kindly offered to share some of her off-shoots with me to re-start my crop.
Sure, that’s just what I need, more of a plant to which my black thumb is toxic!
The next day, I went out to admit defeat, and pull my dead hostas from the ground.
As I wrapped around and pulled,
To my complete surprise… underneath all of the dull deadness…
I found:
My very own, fresh crop of Hostas!
I’m not a murderer after all!
(and have since learned that ‘everyone knows’ that you are supposed to clear away the dead stuff every fall…like I said… skipped that talent line in heaven!)
I was going to wait for my kids to have them help and learn a little gardening, but I was just so excited pulling off dead to reveal a fresh green start, that I did them all (except for one) right then.
As I did it, I kept thinking about how much like life that is…
Maybe what we think is a worthless and dead part of us
Is just a piece that is patiently waiting for us to clear away the gunk
and reveal a fresh new start.
I love spring!
… so what inside of you is waiting to sprout??
