As I start to ponder the complexities of all my thoughts related to gardening, I find myself thinking about vivid memories of childhood gardens long ago, and the need to draw silly analogies from the simplest of tasks in the garden, which seemed to so eloquently parallel lessons taught by everyday life - epiphanies, irony and humility.

It seems to me, that I always want what I can’t have.  I desperately pull weeds when they so tenaciously grow without any need for pampering, irrigation, or fertilizer. They even come back when I chop them off and pulled them up -- roots and all.  Even, when I am fully convinced that I’ve removed that final pesky weed, I discover the following spring, that it had already carefully spread about 10,000 of its offspring – all now happily sprouting in my yard.

Morning glory. (Photo by Esther Blanco)

It seems so ironic, my quest to create a perfect garden. I’m convinced that gardens are Mother Nature’s way to humble human beings. To make us realize that we can’t control our lives, we cannot always have things go the way we plan. And in the end, we must learn plan, hope, pray and finally have faith that the sun will shine and garden, like life, will sprout, grow and renew itself again -- weeds and all.