Thursday, June 23, 2011

Plant or Weed, That is the Question

I love plants and flowers, they make me happy. They remind me daily of God's awesome creativity.

Jonathan, on the other hand, who may think flowers look nice, has a strong dislike for them "because they have bugs". I could write an entire blog post on Jonathan's loathing of bugs... like the time he almost burned our house down while trying to set fire to ants outside our front door. Jonathan will not eat at a table with flowers in the center, he will always move them elsewhere while eating... so the bugs don't get into his food. I find it quite amusing... he probably thinks otherwise.

While I love plans and flowers....my knowledge of them is minimal, to say the least. Up until the last year and a half we were living in a basement suite, so I didn't have the opportunity to plant things... other than a couple indoor plants that I tried very hard not to kill.

My Dad and Renata can attest to the fact that my knowledge of all things plant related is pretty much zero. Which is funny because anyone who knows my Dad and Renata knows that that is the industry that they work in. However, I'm not a total lost cause. I'm learning as I go and as each spring and summer comes and goes I'll know a little bit more about what to do than I did the year before.

Last summer my Dad and Ren helped me plant a bunch of perennials in the front of the house... and by help, I mean I made them do it all because I was 9 months pregnant. Perennials, as I've learned, are the types of plants that come back again each year.

This spring my Mom and I went through the front flower beds and cleaned it all up, ripping out the weeds and the dead stuff from last year. I had to ask my Mom a few times whether something was a plant or a weed.

About a month ago I was walking to our neighbourhood mailboxes and I saw a bunch of plants growing around them and I thought to myself "That plant looks exactly like one that I have in front of my house". I went home and sure enough it was exactly the same. Then I thought to myself "Hmmm, maybe that's not a plant but just a weed and thats why they're growing all over the place by the mailboxes". This is how sad I am: I took a picture of the plant with my iPhone and emailed it to my Dad and asked if it was a plant or a weed. He informed me that it was not a weed but a plant called a Lupin... I sure was glad I didn't go ahead and rip it out! This past week it got the most beautiful, huge white and purple flowers on it.... and so did the ones by the mailboxes. So, now I know.

Renata must seriously go home and laugh at me sometimes. A few weeks ago they were visiting and I said to her "Look at my herb planter on the deck, aren't my herbs growing so well", and she said "Ya, but you should rip out that huge weed in the corner". Well, I almost died! I though the weed in the corner was an herb!! I still laugh when I think about it... and I sure am glad I hadn't eaten it!

Here are a couple pictures of the Lupin, which I now know is definitely not a weed:


























Here are a few other pictures from the front of my house this year:







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