New gardeners seem to have a compulsion to fight against nature. They are obsessed with pruning rules, weed-free beds, and how often the compost pile should be turned. They are particularly opposed to the natural habits of their plants. New gardeners are almost universally obsessed with choosing plants for the length of their bloom season. Once-blooming roses are scorned, and long-blooming marigolds and petunias are bought by the truckload.
I’m ashamed to admit that when I was a beginning gardener, I threw countless perennials into the compost pile because I was disappointed that they only bloomed for 3-4 weeks. I was always on the lookout for the “perfect perennial” – one that would bloom all summer long. The closest I got to this ideal was Moonbeam coreopsis. But you can’t have a garden of all one plant. Well, you can, but it’s awfully boring. So I started adding back the other plants for the sake of variety.
Apparently, I was under the impression that those gorgeous gardens featured in magazines looked that way all summer long, and I couldn’t figure out why my garden didn’t. It took a while for me to get used to the idea that the garden was not static. In fact, it never stayed the same from one day to the next.
The years went by, and I added more and more plants. I started looking for odd little flowers to fill in the gaps between the main bloom seasons. I began to appreciate each individual plant for its unique characteristics. Then I noticed that something strange had happened. While I was learning to accept my garden, I was also learning to accept myself, in spite of all my imperfections.
I have come to think of myself as a plant in God’s garden. It's the combination of the different plants that creates the beautiful and complex garden. Each person is unique, but we are all needed to make God’s garden complete.
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