Taking Out Some FRUSTRATION on My CANNAS

Was busy last Saturday in my Lost and Found garden. I had been looking out there ...feeling all kinds of emotions. Then I started considering my cannas, my thug cannas all in my garden.

Yes, they can be pretty, but they have looked ratty for years now. And they can be invasive here in the South. Something, some little bad bugs, worms, whatever eat them ragged before they reach their full beauty.

That made me mad and frustrated at them. So I decided to rip those cannas out. I was feeling pretty strongly about it, looking forward to it.

Halfway done here, I worked diligently, satisfyingly... and ripped one by one out. Fairly easy except for a few.

I think I may have scared Maxine with all my pulling and tugging and grunting. So I stopped and loved her up.

She is super-sensitive, like me. Blessing sometimes , but I feel mainly a curse.

I  know you gardeners out there who can't grow cannas think I am bonkers, but they grow like wildfire here. My husband hates them, they get very ' yucky looking after a while. Fall over, messy plants.

See ? I am not going to spray chemicals all in my garden to kill whatever minuscule varmints are doing this.

Further yuck .

They look dead to me, and I don't want anything like that in my garden. I know exactly what all you philosophers and psychologists will say that means right now to me. And I can tell you that I already know what it means.

So I rip and I tug and it sates my frustration , for a very short time.

The bad boys. Down and out , but I know these guys like a book, they have roots that live forever.

A tangled mess of roots, and I KNOW I don't have them all out.

The babies coming out .Tons of roots below still . Makes me consider  another spiritual application in my garden concerning the ' roots of sin ', and how we think we can get rid of it on the surface of our lives ...but if we don't go deep enough , and extract the tap roots, or the jumbled up mass of roots that lead us to our own problems...then we won't ever conquer them.
Surface spirituality disgusts God. He knows when we leave the roots of our sins.

Back to my canna destruction therapy.

 Maxine comes over to check on me , well really she just wants me to cart these out to the curb so she can get free of the backyard and possibly harass a passing dog on the front sidewalk.
Or scare my mailman.

Further pitiful, yucky cannas I planted in the back that never even bloomed. 

I know that some smarty-pant gardeners out there will leave me a comment and let me know exactly what is eating these guys up.

Pitt-Tee-Full.
I rip these out too.

That's me in the very back, my little boy was taking some of these shots...as you can tell by his artistic angles..he is swinging on his swing doing this. That's what I get with a 9 year old. Beggars can't be choosers.

He loved getting the rainbow here, I was getting very hot, it was of course humid here. I would normally say this shot represents ' hope ' for me. Not really ready to receive it yet though. I can't even see it yet , much less receive it.

Ready for the curb, rainbow still revealing itself here. Never saw it in person, only showed up when we looked later at the shots. I'm betting God always sees rainbows around us.

Maxine ready to escort me to the curb.

Then Maxine and I come back, see my assistant photographer on his swing ? I wanted to sit here and see what I thought my garden looked like without the cannas.
Before:

I always liked their foliage.


After:

Opens up the garden quite a lot. I bet you are thinking, " I like the cannas in there better. "

But I sit back with Maxine, and look some more...

And I decide I am pleased . Petting her beautiful black coat is soothing too.

Life just keeps going on...regardless.


I encourage you to go rip something out of your garden, something that has always bugged you, but you have allowed it to stay.
It will feel good.


be safe,
Gina

Holding GOD at Arm's Length

Here I am with Maxine, holding her off kissing me , even though I just sprayed myself down with mosquito spray..it deters her a bit. I decided to take my professional photographer , my resident 9 year old son, out to take some pictures of my garden and me working in it.  I like to look at other gardeners working in their gardens on their blogs too. This blog is truthfully a nice distraction from my pain , and so is my garden.

But only a quick fix. A short reprieve. 
I look at it alot. Stare at it out my window, come stand out here and just ' be ' and try to still my mind.

I put on one of my gardening pants, my 4.00 LOVE camisole shirt I bought at Target , and my attractive rubber clogs , plus long white socks of my husbands. And gobs of mosquito spray. I told my son, just start taking pictures of me working. Instead I got about 10 of me working, 5 of the sky, 55 of Maxine and his tree fort , and 7 of nothing.

So much work out here. I have no idea why my garden seems oblivious to what is missing in my life. Why it is still very pretty ? How days go on as if they are normal. How life keeps going on as if nothing happened ? My daughter meant so much, she was so valuable to this world , so important a person...how can life go on as if nothing happened ? 
I do forget that newer readers may not know my 21 year old daughter was killed  in a one-car accident a little over 6 weeks ago now. http://antique-art-garden.blogspot.com/search/label/tragedy

 My little boy asks me "Why did you buy that shirt that says LOVE ? ". I told him, it was cheap and would keep me cool in the hot weather, I am sure half the college girls and half of pre-teens may have this as it was in one of those bins in the front of Target where they put these super-cheapy deals. But, I was just going to wear it to garden , nowhere else, and I made my garden with love. So that's why I bought it.

He looks at the LOVE on my shirt, then looks up at me to see if I really mean it...then he appears satisfied I did and walks away to take more pictures.

I have been asking God lots of questions, angry questions, accusing questions, pointed questions. Repetitive questions. Did He not know how valuable, how special she was ? How much she could give to this world ?

No answers. I did get 2 insights , two I will write about in another post. But no definitive answers.

I am suffering in my relationship with Him, as I know I do not trust Him like I was learning to do. I know I am not alone in this world, losing someone dear to me , someone tragically young, someone with a heart of gold. I am just confused who He is exactly , or learning who He exactly is...and it was not my version of my God. I always believed He would protect those who love Him, guide them daily in their lives, and especially protect the ones who may not be perfect but are really trying to be a better person, a stronger Christian. Like my Sarah.
Good gracious He protected me as a nutty, impetuous, erratic driver when I was young. So why not me, why instead her ?

I have read all the ' because there is sin in this world, that is why she died.", analogies. I have read, ' the rain falls on the just and unjust' lessons. I have heard it must have been ' her time ' to go advice.

But let me try to explain, that once you see your beautiful, full of life child, laid in  a casket, never to breathe again...if you believe you will automatically be OK with the situation spiritually, that your Christian faith will sustain you, that you will completely trust God's will in this tragedy..then you will be mistaken, as the wind will be sucked out of your spiritual sails , almost daily.

My heart and soul feels as overflowing with doubt and confusion as my garden is overflowing with weeds. I talk to God, I know that I should keep drawing nearer to Him, as the Bible tells me to...but I hold Him at arm's length while I fuss. My soul is despairing over the emptiness of my life without my Sarah, and now the emptiness of my soul without my complete trust in God. About how UNFAIR this was to her. That fact really, really kills me.
Relationships, human and otherwise...will not flourish without trust. I want to trust Him, I want to say that He is good and just..always. But I cannot, and that is painful to me.
So , arm's length...not with my back to him...just not allowing Him to get close to me yet.
I do know that I love Him, He is my God , Jesus is my savior. But my spirit and soul and heart are crushed with the weight of this loss.

Deep in my garden here.

I was getting attacked my mosquitoes, left and right. Trying to swat them away , miserable to work or try to like this. Can you see all the weeds , crazy.

I am going to stop this post , and will write about an exclusive club I was invited to that same afternoon as the mosquito invasion. Look at all the weeds  mixed with my flowers. See my heart behind me ...my garden really does soothe me. I am trying to get out here more, my husband sprayed for mosquitoes yesterday and it did help. I am trying to keep up with it , I have not had it inside me to work out here.


I appreciate you followers very much...don't give up on me getting my spiritual walk back on track, I know that God will not ever give up on me. I just need to learn how to not give up on Him.


Bless you,


Gina

Meeting the 87 year old GARDEN CLUB Founder

Alright , here is the finale to my hurt garden feelings...and I like this story the best.

I got ready on Sunday to go up to the garden club tea-party. Put on a black sundress with  little polka dots all over it, put my hair up in a bun , put on some nice black summer sandals...then went out to my big front window to see if anyone had arrived. This is taking place only two houses down from me, and a big afternoon storm had come through earlier...I leaned close to the window, looking down towards the house. I was wondering if they were still going to have it ? Applied some lipstick , went out to grab my pretty plant to give to the home owner, who was my neighbor and was the garden club president's mother. Plus, she had started this garden club 60 YEARS AGO !!! 

I was a bit nervous, looked out the window again, no cars.

My husband passes by me, tells me I look pretty and walks out to his palace/ workshop.

I stand for awhile, look again out the big window, and deduce it was canceled from the storm.

Patted myself on the back for at least attempting to go to this tea, and went upstairs to change.

Also very relieved I did not have to go.

Days go by, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,..and while I am working in the yard on Thursday...I look on my porch and pass by the plant I was going to give my neighbor, the older garden club founder. I debate planting it in my yard, I debate giving it to her, I debate leaving it on her porch with a note.

I debate this mentally for about 4 days.

It was a pretty plant.

Then on Friday, I was doing some basic dead-heading of flowers, and a little weeding. I pass by the plant, and knew without a doubt that God wanted me to get my fanny down there and GIVE it to her .

So, I asked my son if he wanted to walk down there, he was laying in the driveway with Maxine...

They are quite a pair. he says ," Nope."...so I walk down not in my pretty dress, but dirty garden khakis, sweaty shirt and garden gloves carrying the plant. I was almost hoping she was not there, see how selfish I was !

But, I knocked, and low and behold...she answered.

She was utterly delighted I came by.

She was so excited by the new plant, pointed here and there with me about where she wanted to plant it.

I do not see this woman, almost never...so I did not even know if she was sure who I was. Plus I knew her vision was bad.

She then guided me, barefoot over her thick rich grass to see her beautiful blue, purple, pink and white hydrangeas she had.

She told me many years ago , about 30 years or so, a yardman in the neighborhood would bring her little bushes, and they would plant them...and here they were.
I would say she probably had about 50 bushes back there.

She had birdbaths, lovely perennial flowers she wanted me to come get some of...she was very friendly. Then she said the craziest thing, she was talking about growing up in the low country, and she told her husband...who had passed away at 95 a few years earlier , that when she died she did not want to go to heaven, " I want to go to Charleston. ", she said with a smile and a tug at her collar.

I smiled, did not say anything about that being a slightly sacrilegious remark, as she had just told me she was 87 years old.

I was just respectful of her, and told her she looked much younger than 87, which she agreed to.

I liked that.

I stood there talking to her feeling like dirt , but also happy I had brought her the plant.

We then walked  back to her porch, she turns to me, hands clasped together across her chest,  and says, " I want you to join out garden club. " She was so excited, she told me that she had started this garden club 60 years ago, and she was the first President. I told her I was very impressed and I would definitely think about it.

We then talked about Charleston, SC...as she grew up close to there and could talk Gullah. She then started telling me little family stories.

I loved that too.

As I was saying my goodbyes, and I reminded her who I was...as I really did not think she knew for sure,  she stopped me and said very directly, " I know who you are, you're coming to my garden party on Sunday. "

She told me her daughter told her about inviting me, and she was so happy to hear about it.

I froze.

I said I thought I missed the garden party last Sunday?

She says, " No, it is THIS Sunday. "

I then tell her I will try to be there  ,and then I leave and take some branches I had found on her yard down to the side of the road.

As I was walking back home...I laughed inside at myself, thinking I had gotten out of this pickle of Southern garden club women , and instead found out they were delighted I was coming still.

PLUS...another woman who lives close by stopped her car yesterday, asks me to come close...and goes, " I hear you're coming to our garden club party on Sunday . " 

So funny, boy does word get around these women.

Will let you know how it goes,
I may have scored a B- or so on this one from God. Probably lower. He's going to make me a better woman if it kills me,

More later, 
Gina

" Make room in my heart O God, That You may form in me , The image that You have shown in Christ, My very life to be..."

Old hymn ' Make Room In My Heart , O God ' by Bryan Jeffery leech 1950's

Redo of REDO of Garden Pathway : Part 2

Okay, here we are again at my first redo of my garden path. I did an entry yesterday about the whole scenario.

Quick summary:

First..

How I want my back path, with mulch...The Good

  This is what happens everytime we have a heavy rain, washes down the driveway to the left, and whoosh...all my mulch goes to live in the back of the yard : The Bad

Here was my solution after weeks of debating what I should do. I know what I wanted to do, but could not keep either mulch or pebbles there. Fact of life, " How's that that workin' for ya ?" Wait, that's a question...but usually a fact of life comes out of the answer to that question.

So Mrs. Bright Idea, moved these bushes here, with monkey grass ( lirope ), stood back ...and was whammed in the head by my own stupidity.

The DUMB.

Here was my problem. How in the HECK was anyone supposed to walk back there, step over the bushes ? Or how was I supposed to mow my green weeds that look like grass back there...I couldn't get the lawnmower through there ! I could go around the entire garden, but then I would have to go across another barricade of railroad ties and bushes from the bigger pathway.

Dumb bunny here...but, I sat and pondered a bit with Maxine, and came up with an idea.

This is where I sit the most to look at my garden. Maxine always tries to lick me to death up here. I love her, but I don't like to be loved to death with dog drool.
That does not stop her ever.

Back to my solution. 

Redo of the redo.

I removed the middle bush and monkey grass, and moved the middle bush to the front of my seashell pavers. Then I took my planter from my husband's workshop that he does not notice and does not appreciate, and placed it to the left side. I also got some beige cement wavy edgers and laid them flat to finish it a bit.

Little bush in corner here with monkey grass.

Maxine got through the center just fine. See the black metal ironwork to the left ? That is from  a Charleston home, it was a window guard that I need to do something with. It just leans over there, calling to me to do something with it most days.

Better.

My view to the back from my kitchen window.

Mulch is still what I want back there, and on the larger adjoining pathway, but it was an effort in futility.

Whatever becomes a perpetual effort in futility in our lives needs to be removed , to make ways for new creativity to emerge.

So kick something to the curb today that you have been trying , and trying to make work...that cannot work....maybe for years, maybe decades !
Make room in  your life.

My best, more later,

Gina

" Therefore be imitators of God , as dear children. And walk in love..." Ephesians 5:1-2

How GOD Speaks to Me in My GARDEN

 

I decided to write about how God speaks , and teaches me ...in my garden. It is possible that unless you believe in God, you may not understand this...then again, that may be irrelevant. As a gardener, there are many ways that I feel God speaks to me , and two ways are the strongest. 

No. 1 is in the silence, the stillness of day or the feel of a breeze on your skin while you are working.  This world is so polluted with noise, from the life we live...radios or cd players ( which I like ), cell phones,  TV , computers, cars driving by, airplanes, trucks, people , construction , etc. Not all of that is bad, but they make a day outside a respite from senseless, gaudy, worldly noise. Now I am not one of those , hush-hush quiet types...but in a garden..when you are on your knees in the dirt...you are in the quintessential ' prayer and worship ' position. You are working, to beautify and create at your home. I do not believe in ' Mother Earth' , or ' Fairies' or ' New Age ' spirituality. I believe in the one Almighty God , and He started us out in a garden.

So silence, stillness are conducive to feeling God's presence, to feel like listening to Him, to feel like talking to Him .

Or in my case, lots of asking, wondering...whining about life.  Our present , past , choices and decisions , heartaches and triumphs.Thank goodness He is used to that with all of us. 

The No. 2 way I feel God speaks to me in my garden, and this may seem very odd to some folks...is through weed-pulling, weed-irritation, weeds period.

I am down on my knees, annoyed with all these weeds that I cannot EVER stop growing...and I feel God say, " See, if you do not go deep, deep into the reason of why you want something, need something, have an addiction to something...if you cannot EXTRACT the ROOT of the problem...then you will never get rid of a particular weed ( sin ), in your life. "

And so I pull, sweat, tug and wrestle with my weeds ( sins ), that can often overwhelm me with their deep , endless roots.

I also have very positive thoughts and feelings in my garden, especially concerning hope and patience. God shows me to sloooowww down, and wait for something good ( a new flower or first buds ) to appear. He also teaches me to have hope that my creativity will ' appear ' in my garden.

All of this, the beauty of birds, bees, butterflies, flowers and plants, the smell of dirt and leaves and trees and the outdoors...all of it , the whole shebang of a garden...make me consider Who created it all, out of nothing.
Being inside ...I cannot feel what I feel in a garden, outside working.

Lastly, 

I enjoy working on my garden, and my relationship with God...as I see if I neglect my garden...it will not thrive. If I forget it, forget to care for it, forget to check on it...then it will wither and die. Just like my relationship with God, or people that I love or care about. So He teaches me to tend to what I want to thrive...and dig deep and relentlessly for things ( sins ), that need to be out of my life.

When I do that, when I get rid of the ' weeds ' in my life, it leaves room for the more beautiful ' flowers' or habits or blessings, to grow.
The things He wants us to see, to nurture.

Down in your garden, looking at the intricacies of a flower, a buzzing bee, stopping and looking up at the sky and feeling the warmth of the sun...all of it and much more...MUCH more, make me hear God in my garden.

I have no idea if this makes any sense...but it is a smidgen of how I feel He speaks to me in my garden.

Many blessings to you,
Gina


" The LORD GOD planted a garden eastward into Eden , and there He put man whom He had formed. " Genesis 2: 8