When I was a leader for my church’s Awana club, I had the privilege of teaching during their evening closing time. One year the director chose to use a compilation of stories that compared the attributes of various creatures with the role they played in God’s kingdom. When my turn came to share, I drew […]
dahlias
Overcoming Growth Obstacles
One of the benefits of living in the Pacific Northwest is the usually mild winters. The absence of severe weather affords flower gardeners like myself the advantage of not having to dig tubers every fall. We can leave fussy flowers like dahlias in the ground and know that if we mulch them and keep […]
The Power of the Slithering Vine–in Gardens, Story, and Soul
Growing flowers is a hobby I share with my husband. Our penchant for dahlias has given us many hours in the garden together—weeding, tying, and dead-heading the plants. We cultivate everything from pompoms and spidery blooms to dinnerplate size, from the formal to the informal, and everything in between. But despite all our efforts a […]
Trials, Big or Little, Turn Our Faces to God
Not exactly beige, is it? I’m sending you a flower this week. The bloom is new to my garden and a surprise to me. This one is called Wanda Capella. When I ordered the tubers online, the picture of Wanda showed a beige dinnerplate dahlia, but as you can plainly see Wanda Capella is Yella. […]
God Draws Us Like the Sun Beckons a Flower
More than twelve inches of flower Today my dinner plate bloomed. Before you imagine a heap of shrubbery for my evening meal, let me remind you I grow flowers. BIG flowers. Dahlias the size of a dinner plate. Like a child before Christmas shaking the presents under the tree, I walk through my dahlias peering […]