Build Back Bees - Creation's Answer to the Sweetness of Honey

 My generation loved the Classics Illustrated, comics giving the basics for the great literature and popular literature of the past.

A Lutheran Family Robinson is living in a beautiful location for observing Creation. Like many, they are fashioning a home for bees, which means a source of pure honey and beeswax.

I decided to add my earthy advice on how to keep the bees happy and well fed.

I belong to that class of gardeners who start ordering any plant called a pollinator. That designates a plant that will attract and feed bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. If anyone doubts the Creation of the universe by the Word of God - the Logos - then spend some time sitting on the ground with the pollinators and their associates, since each one needs the others. I never get stung.

Seldom do the scientists acknowledge that the class of living things had to be created within a short period of time, or the eaters and eaten would have died immediately. The greatest rose - Queen Elizabeth - came from a Creationist. The most obnoxious weed - the blackberry - was promoted by an atheist horticulturalist.

Bee Balm - in Gilead

Bee Balm is my all-around favorite because of its prodigious blooms and slow expansion of its territory. I dug a clump up for the Butterfly Garden and now enjoy seeing a large patch of flowers there, a good source for more islands of Bee Balm elsewhere. 

Bee Balm grows down near the sidewalk and also close to the front, shaded patio. Some are light blue while the newest are scarlet. People debate whether the color red matters to hummingbirds, but I have seen them darting from one red blossom to the next. 

We watch the bees and hummers while we are drinking coffee. One carefully works over each blossom. Hummers sip from the three (3) feeders and fight over territory.

Bee Bread - Borage

Borage – one of the most important honey plants

photo credit: Peter aka anemoneprojectors via photopin cc

Borage is not only a honey plant, but also one of the most famous ancient spices and a valuable herb. It is traditionally cultivated as a vegetable type and spice, but it is also gwon for pharmaceutical purposes, because of the oil extracted from its seeds, which is often called “star flower oil” or “borage oil”.

If we can believe the descriptions of Dioscorides and Pliny the Elder, borage was probably the magical plant used to make a drink of oblivion mentioned in the Homer’s “Odyssey”. The truth is that this plant were used in different ways known from ancient times.

Borage – how is it grown?

Borage is an annual plant with branching stem that usually reaches a height of about 25 inches that is believed to originate from Syria. Now it is grown literally everywhere, and only in North America it takes an overall area of 20,000 acres.

Centuries ago, the Europeans used to make some tea form the leaves of the plant by soaking them in wine. In 1597 a herbalist named John Gerard pointed out several advantages of the herb and even said that the syrup made from the flowers of borage helps healing depression. Nowadays borage is being sown in order to attract bees, which makes it a valuable honey plant.

Borage is a tiny plant, though I have some larger ones from an Amazon order. This little herb is easily sown with abandon, where it will bloom, drop seed, and draw the bees into its tiny flowers, which are pink and blue (no, not gender related, just cute).

Borage does not take over the garden and adds to the overall population of beneficial insects which live by eating pests or leaving their eggs near pests. The little ones hatch and eat the destructive pests.

Borage is easy to grow and inexpensive.

https://www.kiwimana.co.nz/borage-good-for-bees/

Clethra - Summer Sweet or Sweet Spice

This shrub costs about $20 and grows slowly. How do I rate it? I bought two and they slowly grew, now about 7 feet tall. I bought four more, and one was eaten by a quadruped, devoured. However, the other three were protected by a plastic collar and are flowering today. I only had a total five for the front garden, so I planted four more in the back garden. They are now blooming - tiny but working their way up as pollinators.

Clethra attracts butterflies, as well as many kinds of bees, and hummingbirds. The shrubs have a Cinnabon sweet smell of cinnamon and thrive in the sunlight. I enjoy the way they give off their fragrance the rest of the summer. No one is looking on the porch or driveway and suddenly - "What is that wonderful aroma?" 

Clethra are slow to grow when ordered through the mail, but they are long-lasting and pest-free - as long as they can get rooted in the early weeks.

Mountain Mint Finally Fulfilled My Hopes

Mountain Mint was buried under mulch and cardboard - by mistake. We could not find them. The first two tiny plants soon burst through the Stygian darkness of their burial and grew rapidly. I was disappointed that they did not create the flying frenzy of insects I observed at the Washington DC gardens. 

But lo, this year has produced two shoulder-high crops where the space above the mint is crazy with butterflies and bees of all types, in constant motion.

Joe Pye Weed and Little Joe Pye

Joe Pye Weed was used by Joe Pye as a medicine - so they say - and is now enjoyed by butterfly and bee enthusiasts. Little Joe Pye is a short version with the same profile and flowers.

Joe Pye enjoys the same energy as Mountain Mint - its bees and butterflies abuzz like satellites trapped in the gravitational pull of earth. The leaves have a strong musk aroma joined by the vanilla scent of the flowers. The large version is a true bully plant, spreading out and up to gain all the solar energy. However, the stalks can be trimmed back for better views of the roses and other garden plants.

Yesterday we were enjoying the Hummingbirds at the feeders, sipping and chasing each other away. Our best view was blocked by Joe Pye stalks, so I cut enough away individual stalks to offer a complete view of the feeding.

Quasi Rainwater for the Garden

I used up the last drop of genuine rainwater yesterday, keeping the Coconut Daisies alive. Each rain forecast now gets more distant or less bountiful.

When summer is upon us, I connect more hoses to spigots with some plastic tubing. My cousin, who owns a plumbing business, would be impressed...perhaps.

Yesterday I filled a large garbage barrel up to the brim, only to see it leak completely dry. I demoted the barrel to garage duty.

A newer barrel is now full of water, waiting 24 hours to de-chlorinate. That is the secret few gardeners share and even fewer implement. Plants do not like chlorine, and that is the purifying element in our drinking water. 

My mother aged her plant water in the classroom at Garfield Grade School (now a condo unit - no joking). The other teachers wanted to know why her flowers were spectacular and theirs were not impressive. She confessed to having a green thumb, but told me the secret.

When I get plants in the mail, from roses down to daisies, I soak them in rainwater. Roses can tolerate weeks of water in the root area. Other plants wake up in a few hours and can drown overnight. I have seen many "dead" plants wake up in a few hours, so I learned not to soak them too long.

Currently I am giving special water treatment to roses, Coconut Daisies, plus a new Hibiscus. 

Many plants seem to disappear one year and come back the next. I have given up on new Joe Pye and Bee Balm plants, only to see them dominate the next year. It may be the rabbits or squirrels chewing them down to the roots but not yanking them out of the soil. A little potted plant can be pulled out completely, and I have seen the results.

Like the Easter Lilies - Late But Welcome

 Bee Balm never disappoints.

I bought three potted Easter Lilies for Easter Sunday, going through the offerings at Walmart and its local competitor, Harps. That group provided one bloom and many buds for Easter Sunday. Now they are in full bloom.

I started with a few Hostas from the Gardeners' over-supply, years ago. The ones from the front yard were roasting in the sun. They were moved to the shade of the green fence planted by birds resting on the log fence in the backyard. The Hostas were mature, so they are bursting out of the ground now. With a bit of luck, more will be established this year. I have learned to use the plastic collars around each new Hosta, because the critters love to tug them out of the ground and eat them.

 Instead of chemicals, Howard promoted the use of organic matter to keep the soil in India fertile and productive.

Hosta blooms are loved by hummingbirds. 

The Bee Balms are popping up now. Until a few days ago, they seemed to be gone. They are well established and enjoyed for their not-so-ironic attraction to bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. When the Military Gardening Group gathers on the front porch for coffee, the plants and their tiny companions serve as constant entertainment. I enjoy hearing them and guests ask, "What is that?"

When our vet tech neighbor looked at our Joe Pye Weed in bloom, she said, "I saw those at the nature preserve. I live next to a nature preserve!" Joe Pye is especially loved by butterflies and bees.

Like Joe Pye, Clethra is a late bloomer, but very welcome. Clethra provides a cinnamon sweet fragrance, best enjoyed by a gentle breeze. Insects love the tiny compound  flowers of Joe Pye, Clethra, and Mountain Mint.

 Hostas come in many colors and patterns, and critters love them small. All my new Hostas are collared and watered with rain from the rain barrels.

Can I Get the Job Done Before the Rain Season?

Bee Balms - Feed them - and they will come, all creatures great and small.

I am shy about trying to move Bee Balm around, but the rains are coming and today is my best chance. 

The mint is so attractive to bees that anyone can stand inches away - and watch the bees work the flowers. I have the treasured and rare Insect Bird Passport, which allows me to be around God's creatures without being attacked.

Blue Jays guard their nests like F-15 jets, driving people away in dive bombing attacks. I used to drop off handfuls of sunflower seeds for the parents, daily - near the nest, without any threats or shrieks or alarm. Now I have plenty of food out for all the birds and four bathing areas. Blue Jays are often the first to feed on the barrels.

Birds are likely to call from a few feet away, to remind me of their need for nutritious food with their baths. 

Bee Balm grows hundreds of flowers and reaches 4 feet in height. But mine grew up and around the mailbox, 5 feet tall. Last year I saw signs of a swath being cut down to make it safer for the mailman to open the box. The flowers grew back - and I tried to keep them down for the mailman, who seemed to be missing a Insect Bird Passport.

Two girls visited while their relatives worked on two lawns, ours and Ranger Bob's. They found the honeysuckle, a southern delight, and wild strawberries. Did I have bird food? The peanuts were used up, but I had the corn and sunflower mixture to fling into the grass and garden.

They said, "We want corn to grow in your garden," and I assured them it would happen. I might even see an attempt at sunflower growth.

When the sun is up, I will dig a few holes in the Butterfly Garden and move some Bee Balm over by digging some up from the front of the mailbox. Cardboard will keep down the grass that wants to engulf anything I plant - a  tribute to the soil's fertility and the earthworms' virility.

I smile when I see the complaint - "No Bee Balms came up!" - in their review of the plant, probably from the same order I purchased, a bag of the roots jumbled up. I soaked mine in rainwater and planted them in cold and drizzle of an autumn day. I wrote them off in my future garden map, but they came through and expanded each year.

New Phase for the Rose Garden - Joe Pye Bye Bye

 Take It Easy ran out of red! This one is small and striking, blooms often.

Joe Pye turned into skyscrapers blocking the sun, which I expect in a bully plant. I am using them in the backyard garden to suppress the Blackberries.

I decided to chop them at the base and let them compost in the middle area of the Rose Garden. Each plant has up to 10 stalks and each stalk bears hundreds of compound flowers. They were turning to seed and no longer useful for the pollinators.

Bee Balm, equally anxious to take over the air space, is being cut at the same time. It will rebloom, as it did where the mailman cut the stems leading bees to the mailbox that he wanted to fill. Vitamin B1, B2, B3 - he was not buying it.

 Veterans Honor rose: fragrant, long-lasting, far more beautiful than any photo.

I am refreshing each Veteran's Honor rose and the new clearance roses. Each one will get an egg carton for 30 eggs, with a hole in the middle. I will add peat humus and wood mulch to hold it down and make the area distinctive where the grass weeds will make another attempt to choke them.

Ranger Bob ordered me to fill all the hummingbird feeders, so I made the formula for this task.

 Falling in Love is fragrant, pink, and white.

Plants To Watch

Joe Pye Weed is a butterfly convention center.

People complain about the lack of butterflies. Mosquito spraying (which we have too) is definitely part of the problem. Most plants are sold as butterfly magnets, and I have tried many of them. As a result, we often have butterflies around the gardens. More varieties are showing up now, late in the summer.

We began with Butterfly Bush, which smells like grape jelly when in bloom. Most of the plants that beneficial insects like are also good for butterflies, so I host those too. In short - anything in the carrot family is very good.

The prize-winner is Joe Pye Weed, named after Joe Pye, who used it for medicinal purposes. I planted one near the driveway, because remote locations lead to neglect and loss, perhaps to bunny bellies. The plant is tall and the flowers are not the kind we cut for bouquets, but it attracts more butterflies than anything I have seen - more in number and variety.

I am working on alternative plants in the rose garden next year. One part of the strategy is to use as many Hosta plants as possible. They grow and multiply, sending up flower spikes that Hummingbirds love. We see them routinely hovering by bird-feeders, as if cracked corn might turn into high fructose corn syrup.
"I grow Hummingbird feeders, little one: I do not fill them."

Joe Pye is a good tall plant to keep among the roses. I need to suppress or replace the ground level growth of Bermuda grass, so tall plants can share the work with wide spreading Hostas, wild strawberries, and clover.

Our Army Ranger veteran, a landscaper, began mocking my plans, since we kid each other all the time. I said, "Want some roses for the cemetery?" He takes them to his mother's grave. He grinned, enjoying the Mr. Lincolns and Easy-Does-It roses, a one-two punch in fragrance.

Another tall plant, unknown to most, is Mountain Mint. That mint clumps and spreads in place, not running riot over the garden. The ones I nurtured last year reached five feet tall this year, making the pollinating insects go wild with activity. Mints - if they grow in clumps - are also an attractive landing site for beneficial insects of all types, including butterflies.

 All the Bee Balms are Hummingbird plants,
easy to grow. Scarlet runs rampant but this one clumps.

Monarda - Bee Balm - is another mint I like. Scarlet Bee Balm produces floppy plants that spread all over. Monarda is purple and clumping - tall stands of it. Bumble Bees love it.

Mrs. Ichabod was right about the Butterfly Garden. It is the hottest, sunniest, and most neglected. We avoid walking through the Rose Garden and cannot even see the Butterfly Garden. So I am putting hardy perennials there. Wild Ginger and Comfrey are doing well there. With Joe Pye in the Rose Garden next year, the roses can share space with the butterflies.

Toxins for Sale!
A salesman came by while I was gardening, wanting to sell me mosquito spray. He did not know which chemical it was. That would be like ordering food at an expensive restaurant. "What is it?" Waiter, sniffing, "I don't know. I can ask."

I laughed about mosquito spray. "It won't work - and besides, what do you have against insects? I like them." He was not to be deterred. Spiders. People are afraid of spiders. "Oh. come on now. They kills pests and they don't leave toxins behind."

I pointed out that our yard was toxin free, and he went merrily along, probably a devotee of Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill.

Creation Gardening at Work
The more I experiment with gardening, the more I see the interplay of all parts of God's Creation. "Plant it and they will come!" is a good motto.

I planted Parsley sparsely and forgot it. Eventually two plants grew strong and the Black Swallowtail Butterfly showed up. They love Parsley.

I should not capitalize so much, but I like it for emphasis. College students capitalize every word except Bible, especially in the Old Testament class I teach. Routinely - that is the Only word they do not Capitalize.

Time and again I have wondered when a plant's special qualities would reveal themselves. Joe Pye looks like nothing special until all the butterflies leave in a cloud from a mature plant. That is worth a summer of waiting. Bee Balm? - suddenly a Hummingbird is sipping the blooms or looking for an insect.

That is why roses are loved and appreciated so soon. They are two-year plants, too tough for rabbits and ready to bloom at once. They go in as bare root plants and bloom a month later, regain strength and bloom again.

I cut roses for the Sunday service, which was called off due to Cox being down for the morning - or possibly longer. So I took photos of them and gave them to the Army Ranger veteran. They are posted on this page.

Diversity in the Rose Garden. Avoiding the Monoculture By Filling the Holes with Beneficial Insect Plants

This purple Bee Balm produces clumps
rather than running through the entire garden.
Bumble Bees love it.

Every so often a hole opens up in the rose garden. Some roses never quite get started and others die from various causes. Apart from the Manifest Destiny of planting roses in more and more yards, I also want to balance roses with the creatures that care for the roses.

When I gather roses for the altar or our friends, I often park the vase on the Ichaboat hood so I can fill it where it will not fall over. Once the vase has several roses in it, something is quite obvious. Flower Flies, which look like tiny bees, and Ichneumon Wasps, which are tiny wasps. hover around the roses. When I take their workplace away, they follow it.

Assuming that most beneficial insects need pollen or nectar in their adult stage, the babies need pests to eat. One exception is the famous Ladybug, which eats pests in both stages.

I am loathe to kill the pests with poison, because that knocks off the food supply for the beneficial babies and kills all the beneficial adults, plus spiders and heaven only knows what else. Insecticides kills everything and harm soil creatures too. That is like using Agent Orange for crabgrass when regular mowing and more clover would end its seedy reign.

My current plan  is for using mints to fill in the gaps in the rose garden. One advantage of alternate plants is to cut down on roses sharing disorders because of crowding.

Some people will say, "Oh no, mints. Bee Balm can spread like Bermuda grass. Peppermint and Lemon Mint never go away. Catnip is mean, tough, and ever-growing." And they are right. Our helper threatens me with a midnight planting of his mint, which I warned him about. He went from saying, "Look at how well it grows!" to asking how to stop it.

"Resist the beginnings," Synod President Pfotenhauer said. That is how to stop it.

I am hoping that the two mints I am using in the front will do their job and will clump rather than display a stoloniferous nature, sending underground stems to spread faster than official studies and government commissions.

The red Bee Balm was attractive and odd in the backyard the first year. This year the same plant was all over the bird feeding garden and not very attractive. Norma Boeckler tore hers out. I mowed mine down and covered the area with cardboard.

 This is another reason to grow Bee Balm - hummingbirds.

Monarda - One Mint
In contrast, Monarda - the purple Bee Balm - formed a large clump that I was able to divide. When it reached its peak and bloomed the second year, the beautiful flowers attracted a posse of bumble bees, which were fun to watch.

Spreading by division is easy - dig up the clumping plant and divide the root system. One clump has started in the rose garden. Two more will go there soon, between two KnockOut shrubs.

Mountain Mint attracts butterflies.

Mountain Mint - Another Choice
Mountain Mint is enjoying more attention in gardens. I saw it first in Washington DC, about 30 years ago. I planted several this year, so I expect them to thrive next year. Mountan Mint is supposed to attract a lot of insects, something I observed in DC when they were swirling around in a mad frenzy.

Around the corner in the Sunny Garden will be a Butterfly Garden, mostly aimed at the larvae, so there will be a nearby supply of plants for pollinators.

That is the fun part. I do not need to figure out which plant to create the total effect, because a list of these plants will attract and support the right insects in general.

Butterflies are especially choosy so I know that a given butterfly requires a certain plant - such as Milkweed for Monarch larvae, Parsley for Swallowtails.

Clethra

Clethra - Summersweet
I bought two Clethra from Almost Eden last year. I did not think much of them until I watered them this summer and saw tiny insects fly away from the tiny flowers, like dust in the wind. I found this account on the Net - Gardening in Tune with Nature

Carefully moving branches aside, I positioned my legs and those of my tripod in the middle of the summersweet colony and waited for the wake of my disturbance to settle.  Soon the spikes of flowers, only a few inches from my nose, were crawling with bees, wasps, hoverflies, beetles, and several insects whose images remain on my computer desktop, waiting to be identified.  Bumblebees of all sizes and colored markings outnumbered all other insects.  A lonely honeybee joined the symphony of buzzing, along with several small native bees, some metallic green, others gray or black.  Two distinctly different hoverflies tormented me with their inability to settle down long enough for a photograph, but a tachinid fly obliged, stopping in its frenetic foraging for nectar long enough for me to get a decent shot.  (Both hoverflies and tachinid flies are predators of herbivores such as aphids and various leaf-munching caterpillars.  Hoverflies feed on nectar and pollen as adults, but their larvae feed on other insects.  Tachinid fly females lay their eggs on other insect adults or larvae.  When these eggs hatch, the tachinid larvae bore into the host’s body and slowly consume it.) 

In terms of diversity of insects attracted to a single plant in bloom, nothing in my experience compares to what I witnessed on that August afternoon. 

Reeser Manley has a BS in Biology, a MS in Botany, and a Ph.D. in Horticultural Science. He'll help you learn more about gardening based on his 40 years of gardening experience, 15 of those years in Maine. 

Pokeweed is a perennial herb or pest or bird-feeder
and benefical insect host.

I did not look for Pokeweed - the plant found me. The birds planted it in the backyard and in the cracks of the sidewalk. I called it Pigweed at first, for its resemblance to that reddish weed. Later I learned this giant plant volunteers freely and provides leaves for Poke Salad. The berries are toxic to humans but attractive to birds and many animals, including nocturnal ones.

 This tiny Flower Fly is feeding on the Pokeweed flower.

I recently learned that more birds like Pokeweed berries than sunflower seeds - and Pokeweed is free.

Considering the immense number of berries on a given plant, I hoped it was also a beneficial insect plant - and it is - as I learned tonight. The first flower photo I found featured a Flower Fly, aka Hover Fly, aka Syrphid.

How little we value what the Creating Word gives us for free, from the wildflowers to the beneficial plants that God sends for our good. Most herbs - like the mint family - provide medicine and harbors for the very insects we want to improve our gardens. And yet herbs are not only found in the wild but are incredibly easy to grow.

Around the bird feeder area is one very large White Profusion Butterfly Bush, which attracts butterflies and bees, a smaller Bonnie Butterfly Bush, which may reach 12 feet in height next year, and a Pokeweed, which can grow 20 feet tall. Corn volunteered so much that I had to cut those stalks down, but I have pushed my way past the Pokeweed without harboring any thoughts of cutting it down.

I was thinking - a free bird feeder and perch. Now I am thinking, "I need more of these beneficial insect plants in the backyard."

Milkweed for Monarch butterflies

Sharing the Bee Balm - Root Division - Moving the Mountain Mint. Which Plants Do We Feed?

Bee Balm is very attractive to bees, beneficial insects,
butterflies, and hummingbirds.

Last year I planted some Bee Balm and saw a bloom or two - from the red ones. The red ones went wild this year, so we mowed them down for now. They are a mint and therefore spread easily.

Purple Bee Balms started slowly and built up last year. My main plant was in the rose garden along the Gardener's fence. All of the sudden it bloomed with large purple blossoms. At one point seven bumblebees were working the flowers at once.

Our chiro's secretary loved the purple flowers with the medicinal aroma, so I did a root division today. I planted two Bee Balms in a new place, front and back, and soaked two sets in the rainwater barrel near the roses. I had gallon buckets, so I was able to hand her the chance to have a row of them blooming by next year. She asked for slips, which have to be rooted, then planted. "Go big, or go home," they say.

One Bee Balm went in the hole created when I moved a Mountain Mint into the main rose garden. I was a little leery of the Mountain Mint taking over, but that is more likely with the Bee Balm (Horse Mint).

Mountain Mint is famous for the frenzy of beneficial
insects flying around it all the time when the blooms are out.

The Mountain Mint was getting crowded and overlooked, so I placed that in the hole left by a rose that never woke up. That rose got so many pruning cuts and rainwater that it proved no life was left in it. That happens. A rose does not always come out of dormancy. The non-growing roses (4) were replaced with 7 new ones.

The Mountain Mint - earlier buried alive - has a structure around it to keep us from stepping on it. If I want to protect a new plant, I fit cardboard around the base, cover the cardboard with mulch, and set up small logs as landmarks. Not every plant has the vivacity to emerge from newspaper and mulch. When I saw its tender leaves reaching into the light, I twisted one leaf off to smell it. Think peppermint times ten = Mountain Mint.

Clearly God created a lot of beneficial creatures - and plants to host them in the garden. An article on beneficial bugs mentioned that Borage (aka Bee Bread, related to Comfrey) attracts a wide variety of beneficial insects when it is planted. Mrs. I loves to eat the flowers, so I plant them by the front door and also along Mrs. Wright's fence. They drop seed easily and new ones start, but they are not invasive.

At this point I have 95% perfect roses with no spraying and no man-made fertilizer. A wide variety of flowers are blooming at all times, from dandelions and clover to Crepe Myrtle, tomatoes, beans, and buckwheat.

My maple tree area is plagued with grass, which I tried to removed several times before. Almost Eden suggested using buckwheat to squeeze out the grass. Buckwheat is so pushy that it can be used to displace weeds while flowering constantly to host the beneficial insects. Some buckwheat is flowering from what I planted last year.

So I ordered more buckwheat.

Buckwheat illustrates what is just as true with doctrine. An untended yard or garden will be taken over by weeds in short order. My neighbor said field weeds were taking over our backyard before we moved in. The residents did not mow very often, so the coarse weeds grew, sending down taproots or spreading outward with stolons and seed. Close and frequent mowing removed the weeds, and clover took over almost 100% from the heavy rains last summer.

The Lutheran Church and the Protestant denominations are over-run with false doctrine because the Synod Presidents, District Presidents, Bishops, and Supervisors chose to enjoy the perks of the office rather than bear the yoke of the office.

Teaching sound doctrine is the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word. If you want to feel the blast of opposition and the sting of personal insults, often from so-called friends, just insist on sound doctrine replacing the false teaching deliberately and eagerly promoted by church leaders, church professors, and church publishing houses.

Two Wolves Story

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Two Doctrines Are Like Two Kinds of Plants
Sound doctrine and false doctrine are like the plants, the wolves.

I constantly work to feed, water, and protect the good plants. The weeds are aggressive bullies but sterile. They produce seed and fruit, but no one wants their seed, their fruit, their leaves. I yank the weeds, cut them at their base, cover them up to let them rot away.

False doctrine is fed by the timidity and and ignorance of the clergy and laity. They feed the church structure, so the church structure grows. They let the leaders grow fat and alcoholic with the easy and high pay of their positions, which further insulate them from any criticism. The rule is - show extreme deference to the leaders - but do they show any deference to the Word of God? Just the opposite is true. They will destroy a congregation to get even with a few people who cross them. They will ban books, as happened in the days of Crypto-Calvinism, for teaching Biblical doctrine.

Their mouths are full of honey when talking to the rich, who love to pay for financial absolution of their sins, indulgences without the name or shame.

Pokeweed grows in sidewalk cracks but
zooms to 9 feet tall in the garden, large, fruitful, with toxic berries loved by birds.