Wildflowers, Weeds and Heaven

Photo Credit here.

I ripped plants out of the ground this afternoon after work and before the sun set. I recognized the irony in mourning a tree but mercilessly pulling out dandelions, creeping charley and other nameless blights from the wet earth. If I did nothing, I would have a yard of color – mainly white and yellow - dotting shape-shifting greens with wild violets punctuating the ensemble in deep purple. 

 

My aunt tells a story about my grandmother and flowers. The story goes like this: My aunt and uncle built onto the old farmhouse sometime after they married, eventually moving into the main house while my grandmother occupied the one-bedroom apartment my aunt and uncle initially constructed. My aunt began planting around their shared home, and Granny asked her what she was planting. “Flowers,” she said, to which Granny replied, “What a waste.” 

 

Growing up, much of the back yard supported corn, beans and peas. A side yard had turnip greens, tomatoes and okra. The flowers bloomed on those plants, but the end prize was the fruit or vegetable it produced. I don’t know what she did about all the “weeds (and their flowers)” which have now overtaken the back yard. 

 

As a small child, I loved the wild violets and always hoped they would survive their harvesting (which they did not). I loved dandelion seed heads and finding one which looked perfectly round in order to try and blow off all the seeds with one giant breath (which rarely occurred). I don’t remember the other variety of flowers and plants which I now grab and pull from the earth with abandon. 

 

When I stop to look at the plants, these so-called weeds, awe overtakes me. I can think of at least a dozen different types of leaves, growth patterns, flower designs, heights, root structures, etc., as I consider what I grabbed by fistfuls and yanked from the ground earlier today. Their ability to replicate and proliferate far outweighs mine. Thousands of flowers formed week after week and I trample them to admire scrawny azaleas and thorny rambling roses – both miserly with their blooms, demanding a certain amount of pampering to keep up appearances. 

 

Still I clamor after showy blooms and shocks of color, preferring the hassle of prima donnas to the scruffy take-what-take-can of chickweed, henbit or purple archangel. 

 

My mother, who could kill pretty much any plant in her general vicinity, told a different story about Granny and flowers. In her version, her mother took a hillside and transformed it with gladiolus and a crepe myrtle. According to mom, Granny loved to witness the flowers unfurling each summer and delighted in them. As she aged, she bent more toward roses from what I remember. 

 

On her deathbed, she woke out of whatever stupor held her and spoke of seeing Jesus. “Everywhere he goes is love and peace,” she said. Then, her eyes brightening, she added, “And the fields are filled with yellow and purple roses!” A few moments later, she had passed into the place where roses grew like wildflowers and weeds. 

3/13/26