What is a weed? To me a weed is a plant that grows where it is not wanted. In the right place, at the right time, the humble weed is called a glorious flower. James Russell Lowell wrote in “A Fable for Critics” in 1848, that “A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.”

The sunflower in this photo is a true volunteer in our yard, not planted by us. I thank a gardening bird for this royal yellow beauty appearing as a seemingly tender sprout on about November 1, 2008. My husband asked me what it was, and if I had planted it, since it was growing in the wrong season in the wrong spot, where we often dragged a hose and our recycling bins. Certainly the timing was way off for sunflowers.

I love garden surprises, so watched it and dared to hope it would flower. It had survived several nights of severe frost which killed many a lesser plant, and showed signs of enduring, even as it leaned at an alarming angle. On Christmas Day the seven inch across flower opened fully and my husband took this photo of me as a Christmas elf admiring the sunflower.

As Christmas approached, the sunflower opened up its yellow heart and we enjoyed this gift. This started me thinking about other garden surprises, and encounters with what we call weeds. I have been known to plant a row of vegetable seeds, see little seedlings emerge, weed out other plants, and then discover that I was nurturing “weeds.” In my defense, tiny seedlings of radish or Japanese mustard look a lot like weed seedlings to me.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1878 in “Fortune of the Republic”, “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” I find his definition to be very generous and rather correct. I planted a Feverfew years ago, and find it spreads with many new plants each year, so that I always leave a few to flourish, yet pull up many that are in places where I don’t want them. The Feverfew is a pretty plant with small white daisy like flowers that have yellow centers, that resemble Chamomile flowers.

Thinking of weeds is helpful to Christians, as we form a mental picture of weeding out of our lives things we want to stop doing. As Helena Rutherford Ely wrote in A Woman’s Hardy Garden in 1903, “I always think of my sins when I weed. They grow apace in the same way and are harder still to get rid of.”

And in Matthew 13:41 it is written “The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.”

What better reason do we need to be a flower and not a weed?

Copyright © by Terra Hangen Share