Reflections on Weeds and Flowers for Outdoor Wednesday

Our home is built into a hillside that's a few degrees shy of being a cliff. The views are wonderful, even those beneath my feet. I'm standing on a host of weeds, some of them quite beautiful, whose names I've come to know thanks to a Master Gardener ™ program.

A significant portion of that program involves the identification and eradication of weeds. Its goal is to produce a trained corp of volunteers who will extend sustainable gardening techniques to others in the community. Classes, taught by faculty and industry professionals, are sponsored by the Extension Service of many state universities. At the end of the 12 week training period, now certified students become volunteers and start a year of pay-back that can range from teaching to weeding and time on the Extension Service hot-line. They know a lot about weeds, believe me. Some from the gardener's catechism, "A weed is a flower that grows where it's not wanted." Some from long hours spent in gardens of their own.

My musings today weigh how much flowers are like people. Some bloom only in the soil where they were first sown. Others thrive when taken on the wind and dropped on foreign lands. The flowers beneath my feet, while tended, are not deliberate plantings. The bluebells in the woods came from an English forest floor and the poppies, breath-taking in their profusion, came from California and managed to find the only patch of sunshine on our hillside. Nature, its design and vagueries, never ceases to amaze me. I've chosen to contain, rather than eradicate, these flowers others call weeds. They are simply too beautiful to destroy.

Today is Outdoor Wednesday. I'm sending this to Susan at A Southern Daydreamer who hosts the event.