Flower gardening in the desert isn’t really my normal mojo here on the blog. I’m here for family life, travel and sharing the motherhood journey. But man, there is magic in gardening, I love my little garden so much! And the more I work in this new hobby, the more analogies I find with gardening and parenting. Especially as I worked this last season to plant summer flowers in the desert.
I mean, it doesn’t really seem like beautiful, delicate flower petals can really have any chance in H-E-double-hockey-sticks of surviving 115 degree desert summer temps. Yikes, it’s hot here!
But look what is blooming in my garden right now:
The most beautiful, dainty petals are stretching out right here in the desert heat.
I love how the petals start to uncurl…
…and then uncurl some more:
Slowly unfolding into the sun:
Prepping the Soil for New Flowers
Oh that didn’t just happen, believe me. This is how my garden looked at the end of the winter flower season, all fried up from the sun:
I dug and pruned.
With ranunculus you dig up the corms to keep for next season. See them all lined up to be cleaned on the right below?
Then you rinse and dry them out, and store them until next spring when you can plant again:
Then I prepped that soil for new growth.
I mix the old soil with the new. Soil from Home Depot with “above ground” draining capacity.
Then I soaked all my new seeds, and planted a few different varieties, thanks to my friend and flower-teacher Jamie. Love you Jamie!
It is such a satisfying and special thing to watch those seeds start to sprout:
My zinnias take my breath away. Here’s my first tiny crop, which I probably shouldn’t have cut before fully bloomed but I was leaving out of town:
I planted these ones later, they’re still working on the blooms:
But my SUNFLOWERS came up too…just on the brink of blooming:
The Joy of Growing Something
It’s crazy how much joy it gives me to watch all this unfold in my garden.
Why is that?
Is it because there’s just something so special about watching the fruit of your labors?
Is it because God is such an incredible artist?
Is it because watching new life unfold is just plain fascinating?
I don’t know, but man, I love my garden!
A Parenting Analogy to Gardening
And really, back to the parenting analogy, isn’t that kind of how parenting is?
Oh it can be slow to see progress.
There is a LOT of parenting work going on behind the scenes. And lots of different varieties.
As parents, we sometimes take a “garden” that looks like my burned up one above, and we prune and dig.
We pour in blood and sweat and tears. And so much love.
It takes time for kids to mature and grow, just like it takes flowers. It takes attention. And patience too.
Often there are back-breaking messes to clean up, and we wonder if our work will ever come to fruition.
Sometimes we don’t see the results for a long, long time.
But then there they are. All different varieties just stretching their wings to fly.
And it about breaks your heart with love to watch.
Oh I do love gardening.
But I’m here to say, parenting is even better 🙂
This reflection reminds me of a beautiful prayer by Archbishop Oscar Romero:
Prophets of a Future Not Our Own
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Oh my goodness I LOVE this. Thank you so much for sending. It’s so powerful to realize that really, no matter how hard we try, we are never fully in control. We have to be humble enough to realize there is something so much bigger at work. I love to think of all our efforts being steps, even baby steps, that help us progress. I’m definitely saving this, thanks so much for sending.
XOXO
This is so beautiful. I’ve been trying to grow here in the desert and this summer heat just bout destroyed everything I have. I need some type of shade for my garden. And yes I so see the analogy with parenting. School just started today, some good stories some not so good stories but I am here to sit and listen, give advice and watch them go thru their ups and downs.
Wow, that’s crzy to think that some children (I hate the word kids) are going back to school already. It seems so early.
Most schools in the UK don’t break up until next week & then go back in September.
I love these thoughts too. I cannot believe your kids started school so early. I love that thought of just sitting with them through the ups and downs. I love to think of it as watching the waves rather than jumping in with them. Good luck with it all!
XOXO
Do you plant flowers specific to the desert Zone that you’re in? Neat how different it is to our gardening over here in the green mid-atlantic. Also love the prayer from that comment above. From my own cultural tradition is this poem by Rabindranath Tagore:
On many an idle day have I grieved
over lost time. But it is never lost, my
lord. Thou hast taken every moment
of my life in thine own hands.
Hidden in the heart of things thou
art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds
into blossoms, and ripening flowers into
fruitfulness.
I was tired and sleeping on my idle
bed and imagined all work had ceased.
In the morning I woke up and found
my garden full with wonders of flowers.
https://poets.org/poem/gitanjali-81
Oh I love this so much too! I have been sure feeling this lately! All my best intentioned efforts just like little drips and drops in such a huge bucket of what I WANT to do. But I love this reminder that even the drips and drops are helping build the foundation of what I want to be. Thank you so much for sharing.
XOXO