The ever changeful "growing" season

I don't know if you remember, but I visited an old stately home and gardens in June. The walled garden was beautiful, and I was particularly captured by the long bed of Alium.

I have yet to get any for my own garden, but it's on the plans for next year!

Well, we returned to Wimpole last week, and once again visited the walled garden. 

However, this is what I was greeted by this time.

Same spot, totally different flowers!!!  The plants had changed to ones that suited the growing season that we were now in.  So, it looked completely different.  Same garden, different plants.

There were some beauties all around, and I thoroughly enjoyed looking at it all.

I am so very much loving learning more about flowers and plants, and pondering what I will put in next year!!

However, you may have guessed, the plants got me thinking.

(should I have that as "my line"?  - "it got me thinking".....)

It got me thinking about life as a wife, and more particularly as a mother.  Life is changeable.  It goes through an abundance of different "growing seasons" as a mother, as a wife, and as we cultivate our children   Each season has its own beauties, and its own hard work.  I dare say, as much as I know little about gardening as yet, that different plants require different levels of work to keep them looking beautiful, and to help them reach their full potential.  In order for the garden to have its purpose fulfilled, as something of beauty and interest, there has to be work done.  Some plants may need more trimming and dead heading, some may have more weeds springing up around them than others.  Some may have insects that want to eat them, others may fend them off without much effort.  But, no matter the level of work involved, it ends up with the same result - a garden that is beautiful and that people enjoy.  Also, a garden which the gardener is satisfied and pleased with, after all the effort they put in.  One thing is for VERY sure - if they didn't put the work in, the garden would not be quite the same. It may have flowers, but they wouldn't be as healthy and look as nice if the gardener didn't apply themselves to caring for it.

How like my role of a mother this is!!! There are many season in motherhood.  Some require a lot more care and patience than others.  Many of them involve struggles with problems and issues that appear with the children.  I may need to stake some of them up a bit more, to train them how to behave and stand strong.  Some may need attitudes pruning and removing, in order to for their character to be formed into something that is pleasing and not offensive.  Some of them may have times when they just grow and bloom without many major issues that need to be resolved.  ALL of them include the need for "watering", "feeding" and caring in some way or form.  And, if I neglect them, they will become over-run by "weeds" of bad behaviour and attitudes, and the "blooms" of character will be damaged. Some may show their best blooms in one stage of life, and another child may bloom later.  Some may have their biggest need of "gardening" in the younger years, whist others need more care as they mature. Most plants, I would think, will do best if you care for them whilst they are younger, and more tender.  

As I go through each season of motherhood, I face varying challenges and rewards as well.  I see my children blossom and bloom - they give me immense pleasure, despite the fact that it requires blood, sweat and tears to gain that pleasure.  It's worth it.  Worth it all, to see the beauty.  

And, sometimes it's hard to see the true things of beauty.  We can be taken up with the external, and if we look very hard there are little things of beauty waiting to be seen, if we only look hard enough.

This plant was such a prefect example of this.

These plants gave such a beautiful display, all together like this.  But, do you know, these are only the LEAVES???   It's just a coloured leaf, making it look nice. But the real flower needs a bit of careful examination to find.

Do you see tat tiny little flower?  That pretty, delicate, orchid shaped flower?  THAT'S the flower for the plant.  You need to look carefully, or you might not even notice it is there.

It's the same with children.  There are things about them that we see before anything else.  It's not always something that's very good - it may be something that you just cannot ignore. It may be just something that's "normal" for a child to be. It may be that it's something that's just like every other child around.  But, if you take the time to look beyond the ordinary, the external or what is expected, you will see something blooming and growing - something that is special and unique. All of our children have something special, if you take the time to find it and appreciate it.   

So, I am glad for my different seasons - for the ones that are harder.  The seasons of hard work and the seasons of change.  Why? Because they lead to something that is beautiful and worthwhile. 

In those days when everything is hard, and we can't see the beautiful part of being a mother, take time to stop and look, and find that beauty in your garden.