First Year Plant, Second Year Sleep, Third Year Leap - Tips for Growing Hosta

 Someone posted this graphic on the Net, because people wanted everything good to happen at once. The topic came up in a sermon and an email message to me.

I often talk with my neighbor about the news since his family will not listen to him. He is impatient to hear more good things happening, which is a common theme on independent news threads right now.

I see everything zooming by too fast, not too slowly, unlike the early days when I thought 12 grades of public school were too many.

Aristotle said, "Patience and courage are so closely related that one is either the daughter or the mother of the other."

Hosta Advice
The hostas I planted last fall have sprouted, encouraging me to move more plants from the backyard. Hostas grow well in deep shade, enjoy shade and sun, and produce flowers perfect for hummingbirds.

The advice for hosta growers is:

• Plant them the first year.
• They sleep the second year.
• They leap the third year - easy to divide and multiply.

That seems to be true of most plants. Roses bloom the first year as bare roots, but additional blooming that year is rather slow. The second and third years are much more productive, which only makes sense when considering root growth and the underground network established by fungi.

Three years easily become three decades, believe me. When something seems too much to bear, too long to wait, God's own solution is often around the corner, but just slow enough to give Him credit instead of congratulating ourselves.

Our front yard looked as barren and abandoned as any land could, because I let the leaves and weeds feed the soil for spring and summer rains and sunny days. Soon the roses will bloom among many different perennial plants and my favorite herb - the dandelion. Two years ago, a real estate agent driving by hit the brakes, opened his window, and said, "What a yard!" when all the roses were blooming. 

Mints Too

I have coddled and watered mints, which seem to be so weak the first year. They were the first to grow this icy spring, far ahead of the roses. Now I have large minty mounds ready to flower and host beneficial insects and butterflies.

My helper buried Mountain Mint, which broke through the newspaper and wood mulch anyway - much later. Last summer it turned into shoulder high mint. The old stems are still there but the new larger colony is growing among those stems. I am very late to do anything with old stems because they are shelters for good insects, such as solitary bees.

Scattering

Mark 4/Matthew 13 teaches us to scatter the living seed of the Word carelessly - no soil testing. I am waiting for the Church Shrinkers to wear sackcloth and ashes, wail, and apologize for all the damage they have done while "soil testing."

Scattering means:

Blogging every day, with posts expected twice or thrice a day.

Broadcasting the Means of Grace on Sunday.

New sermons every week and on special holy days like Ascension.

Holy Communion offered each Sunday.

Bible study on Sunday.

Greek New Testament lessons on Wednesday.

Some books here and there.

Teaching the Gospel in graduate studies, Old Testament, etc.

Neighborhood visitation.

Thank You for the Personal Messages
I get a lot of personal messages, which are always encouraging. As people recognize, I omit names and obscure origins. Those who speak from the battlefield have a lot to share about their experiences. I am just a traditional Lutheran with traditional Lutheran, liturgical services and the reliable KJV for readings, with great hymn classics. 

I should not be alone in this, but that is the unfortunate truth. 

1. The ELCA traditions have abandoned Justification by Faith and all common sense. Worship? - no - social justice warrior training.
2. The LCMS-ELS-WELS grandees would never stoop to read or quote the classics from the much earlier ELCA founders - like Jacobs, Reu, Lenski, Krauth. These SynCon fakes have nurtured and grown the Stephan-Knapp-Walther heresy, calling it the Gospel, despising Luther no less than ELCA does. Worship? - no - recruiting through entertainment, no matter how this has become a proven failure. 

 Good news! Missouri is losing members twice as fast as we are! We are winning, winsome, and winnowing out the dissenters. That's a win, brethren and sistern.