What goes around...

I've been doing a lot of weeding over the past few weeks to clear our flower beds for the actual flowers. I've never minded weeding - I find it rather enjoyable to yank those weeds out by the root and clear the space for something else to be planted. Now, I don't enjoy it so much in mid July when it's 90 degrees and the flower beds are out of control and everything needs cut back as well as weeded. My love for weeding only lasts through the cool spring months.

A significant story from my younger days (I have to be as vague as possible, because I really can't remember if I was in grade, middle or high school) involved weeding. My mom is quite the gardender. She's always adding perennials and shifting them around from one season to the next. In fact, I remember my dad saying telling us "your mother rearranges her flowers the way most people rearrange their furniture." I also remember that after our 1-2 week long vacation at the Jersey shore we would all spend hours weeding the day after we got home. And then there was the weeding incident. My mom had put me to work weeding one her flower beds located in the corner of her fence. If I can recall correctly, I wasn't too excited about it. I had a paper grocery bag pretty much filled with weeds when I got to some white weed like flowers that were growing into the fence and on the other side as well. I finished off my weeding with a bang and pulled them all out as cleanly as possible. Since that was the last of my weeding those white flowers were arranged at the top of the bag - as if I had gone grocery shopping and bought some flowers as well. My mom came over to check on my progress and was completely horrified to see her Shasta Daisies that she had been grooming for a few years, displayed so lovely in a bag of weeds. I know she yelled at me and I think there were some tears in her eyes. I responded with, and I quote "You care more about your flowers than you do about me!" (That settles it, I had to have been a teenager!) and ran off quite dramatically. Two things...first, I swear I didn't know they were special flowers - they were growing into the fence for goodness sakes! Two, I never was asked to weed again. Honest, a totally unforeseen consquence to my actions.

Fast forward to 2008 and I'm cleaning out my flower beds. Perhaps this picture will explain better than I can...
In the middle of the picture is a medium sized green leafy plant. To the left of it is a teensy tiny green leafy plant. I was soooo sure they were weeds - but luckily Matt reminded me after I had only weeded one that he was pretty sure they were flowers. Then I realized that I had weeded out the beautiful blue Columbine that is in it's second year and yields an early Spring bloom. I immediately felt a connection to my mom's grief over the loss of her perennials so many years ago, although mine was free of an dramatic conflict because I had done it myself. Apparently my mishap at a young age worked in my favor because my weeding was pretty ineffective and the plant (the one on the left) has already started growing back.

I still love weeding. But I'm a bit more cautious about it. In fact I am pretty sure I have given a number of weeds a free pass in the past week or so because I'm just not convinced they aren't a beautiful flower. I can only imagine how wonderful my flower beds will look this July!

Thanks for joining me in this journey into my past and then right back again into the present!