After the Storm

My mom came for a visit this weekend.  We spent some time in the greenhouses and out in the garden.  A lot of time.  She de-chived my perennial bed.  Those cute little chives had seeded themselves into every nook and cranny and were threatening to choke out every decent plant in the garden.  This involved digging up each plant and sorting out the roots and putting the good roots back into the soil

In the life of the garden the chives and other noxious weeds are a cancer.  I've spent many an hour out there considering the metaphor that the weeds are a cancer and I am a surgeon removing them from the healthy cells of the body. Round-up is like chemo, it gets the job done but you are bound to do some damage to the good plants to save them from the bad.

We planted 11 new shrubs and two new trees.  Everything is coming up so beautifully, all the ferns and hostas.  The evergreens are all getting their cute little new growth.  It's really the best time of year.

Saturday night the storm sirens ran.  Sirens in Eagan are a little skit-zee.  Officials have been known to sound them for a high pollen count.  But, you never know, this could be the big one.  I heard my mom get up and go down to check the weather on the TV.  Thunder and lightening shook the house and the wind and rain came and it was one of those where you feel like the house is going through a dishwasher or a car wash.  My heart sank.  All the little seedlings are just making their way out there and we give them this.  I listened for the hail which luckily did not come.  I looked out the windows and saw the trees blowing sideways.

The trees amaze me.  There is an oak tree.  You couldn't move it with all your might and if you hit it with the car the tree would win.  Yet, there he bends completely over in the wind.  I don't get it.

Sunday morning I headed out still in my jammies to access the damage.  Some sticks and leaves around and those little maple helicopters were everywhere.  But no tree uprooted and even the little ferns were mostly okay.

Resiliency.

Amazing resiliency.

Granted, it wasn't the big one, thank goodness.  The sun shines and the rainbow comes.

In 1998 Eagan lost 10,000 established trees in one storm.  We were just married and I had just moved here.  As we drove through the wreckage I worried that maybe Minnesota wasn't such a great idea.

Everyplace has it's storms and every life has it's storms.

Every garden has it's weeds.  The weeds will always be there.  I must, must, must remember that to enjoy the garden you have to see the flowers and look past the weeds.

And little by little our roots grow deeper and we are better able to withstand life's storms.  Like the tender ferns and the giant oak trees, we too can be resilient.