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| It was not this bad, but there is snow on the ground and perhaps more to come today. |
The Horrible Snow Is Often a Plant-Saver
Those gardeners who fashioned snow forts in their childhood know that snow makes a warm blanket. I insulated roses with leaves in Minnesota, caged in chicken wire. Spring melted the snow into the leaves and left the roses with an energizing blanket of decomposing organic matter, plenty of carbon to feed the soil's fungus population.
A winter without snow, even in Arkansas, will wreck the bud union of the hybrid tea rose and produce a wild rose with no appeal.
Melting snow also spurs spring growth, especially since the cold tolerant plants grow so early. There is nothing like spinach planted in the fall, protected by leaves, then exposed to sun when snow is still on the ground. The plants grow well, have no insect damage, and are crunchy with moisture instead of being dry and gone to seed.
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| I am the Johnnie Appleseed of roses. I cut roses for medical people and neighbors. I give the plants away whenever we can. Someone wrote about the Veterans Honor rose plants that we sent in memory of her husband. Roses make people gasp in awe, and no rose gardener - or rose farmer - becomes jaded by growing them. |
Fire-vorks or Slow Moving Chords
Sometimes I listen to popular music on YouTube when grading assignments. The TV audiences seem to like the singing I abhor - the screaming and the acrobatics on each note - Whitney Huston forever and ever. But sometimes a singer will simply show the beauty of the human voice, holding notes with a purity of sound.
When I was in concert band, we all wanted to play the Gillette Fight Song and the Lone Ranger theme (aka William Tell). But the best band and orchestra music emphasizes chords rather than the skittering notes of those fast passages, the "fire-vorks" as my German flute teacher used to say.
People often say, "I cannot wait for spring, for summer, for the roses to bloom." Those anxious ones are missing the long, harmonic chords of Creation as we slowly move from winter greys to the beauties of spring.
For example, the very first sprigs of green are fun to detect. I saw a green weed poke out of the mulch, well watered and fed. Its roots are feeding the soil, so I am not going to yank it.
Creation Timing
Each plant knows its time. The Wild Strawberries set the tables for the birds so they have fresh fruit. They are a green carpet in the rose garden and backyard, even with a freeze coming on. They will bloom and fruit in the shade, too. In gratitude, the birds plant even more of them, by perching in branches, on the fence, and sharing while searching for worms.
The Crepe Myrtles seem to be on strike. They green up, bud, and flower late, but they show off their color most of the summer and tolerate the dry season. Then they feed the Cardinals their seeds.
But the roses from last year put out their red leaves early in the bitter cold, greened up with the rain, and will bud when we have more sun. The new ones are still barren of leaves, so the veterans calm my case of planter's panic. Roses almost always leaf out, and the Internet growers guarantee it.
I would like to work out a schedule that runs so smoothly. We went to the diabetics office, and they mistakenly dropped the appointment. I promise to get things done and various events and duties prevent that. The Daffodils not only came up on time, they came up through the pine needle mulch piled on top. Their leaves are now fashioning new flowers below ground to bloom next spring. The neighbors loved them so much I am planning some drifts.
Grape Hyacinths were first planted by another renter. Mulch does not slow them down. They bloom early, as if to show they can be very special in the early spring, even though they are neither grapes nor hyacinths.
Insects have not really arrived yet. It is too cold and the table is not set for them. They want nectar and pollen, so they wait to burst from their Lazarus state, to feed on plants and feed the birds.
We carefully planned a new addition to a church and forgot the windows would not open fully, thanks to the sloping roof. The rug was installed wrong, the way the committee insisted. Oh well.
Most building projects have their anomalies, like typos in publishing. But God's Creation takes care of its shortcomings and overabundance while making up for our mistakes.
Seminary Creation Gardens Needed
If every seminary professor worked a Creation garden, there would be no quibbling about God's six-day formation of the universe -through the Word.
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| These Shasta Daisies will host the wonderful Tachinid flies and plenty of spiders, unless the gardener bombs them with insecticide. |
Example - Tachinids
Here is a simple example of Creation engineering and management. I want Tachinid flies to attack the aphids on the roses. I cannot breed or round them up, "Here, Tachinids. I need your help. Please stay here and build a proper family."
All I have to do is grow some Shasta Daisies, which grow easier than Dandelions and also come up quickly in the spring. Once they bloom, the Daisies display Tachinids feeding there on the blooms - all the time. I do not need to order them over to the roses. Good TF parents lay eggs near the aphids to let the children devour those miserable parasites.
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| This is Norma A. Boeckler's garden and her design for the cover of Creation Gardening. |
