Blessings are found even in your garden

By Jimmy Williams

"Now thank we all our God
with heart and soul and voices. 
Who wondrous things hath done;
In Whom His world rejoices." 
- Martin Rinkhart (1586-1649)

Indeed He hath done wondrous things.  Alas, His world (that's us) rejoices too seldom in our bounty.  We once held All Hallows' Eve in only minimal esteem and Christmas wasn't thought of (except by children) until after The Day of Thanks.   No more.  Thanksgiving and its significance is only a blip on the screen as we change channels from the Halloween excess to the even more bloated Christmas regime.   All in the name of revenue.

Hail the money card!  Hail Wal-Mart!  Hail Target!

Start counting your blessing and, unless your the most bereft person in the world, you'll still be busy adding them up a day or two later.  That goes for gardeners, too.

I humbly bow and give thanks that the '90s have seen no devastating droughts or freezes such as we were plagued with for several years in succession a decade ago.  Regrowth on some slow things is just now getting back to normal.

In the short term - this year - I have been grateful for the finest summer and autumn weather imaginable.  Well, there could have been a little less rain in October and November, but who's complaining?  I won't go into in detail about spring, but hey, we're supposed to have that kind every few years.

Funny how you start counting blessings and one leads to thoughts of another.  My grandmother, Mrs. W.P. Williams, began my list of pass along blessings with a 2-foot specimen of doublefile viburnum some 20 or more years ago.  This was an "extra" (I found out later the plants she called "extras" weren't that at all, but ordered specifically for me) from Wayside Gardens, before that famous company went bad.  (They may be better now.  I haven't ordered from them for several years.)  She was high on the doublefile, as I have come to be.  Hers is now 15 feet tall and 25 feet wide.

There are many others from Granny I could mention, but as I looked around our garden during the mist and fog of last Sunday afternoon other benefactors began to come to mind.

Even on the season's downside and under the miserable weather conditions there shone a few late blooms from a miniature hollyhock, Malva sylvestris, a more recent gift from our wonderful friends of four years, Ron and Donna Dieter of Galva, Ill.  It's not just the malva; they have graciously provided many other "test" plants from their retail perennial nursery.  (I will admit, I have fed and housed them a couple of times.)

Then there's Mrs. Hunter of Franklin Drive who gave me a generous start of the finest summer phlox in my modest collection.  I have had oodles of high-priced new varieties of tall phlox over the years, and not one still stands.

Hunter's Favorite (my designation), on the other hand, has been divided time and time again as I continue the process of passing it along to friends.   It is a striking magenta (a bad word to some gardeners, but they haven't seen my phlox) with smaller heads and individual flowers than more modern varieties.  They will always stand up to stormy weather.  Last week, I had a couple of scattered blooms yet extant on my plants.  They had cranked up in early July.  Four months ain't bad for a perennial.  No mildew, no trouble.

Lastly, as the preacher says (it never is), I am so thankful that my 20-year-old Bradford pear tree came crashing down into a pile of stovewood about a year ago.  I (like more authoritative advisers) had espoused the Bradford for years, and young trees do make up into fine architectural accents in a short period of time.   Like most fast trees, however, they will probably prove to be short-lived.   They branch thickly at near the same height on the trunk and form numerous narrow crotches.  Ice, snow, or wind can wreak havoc with them, as the latter did to mine.

The reason I am happy (I wasn't a year ago) is that I have replaced the Bradford pear with a sarvis tree which will, if it thrives, grow into a far more valuable asset than the pear ever would have.  If the pear had hung around for a few more years, I wouldn't have had a chance for the better sarvis in time to see enough satisfying result to make it worthwhile.  Now I will. . .maybe.