Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Plant Quiz

Can you identify this plant? Tell me what it is! And advise me on how to care for it. These big flowers open up in the morning, and then a day or two later they fall off.

I have no green in my thumb; I don't think I have the attention span for it. But I go to the annual plant sale at the kids' old school and buy some tomato plants, basil, and cilantro, and I usually buy some flowers to fill one big pot for the backyard. The flowers in that it this year were some cosmos, and two other flowers that have since been choked out by this rogue squash-ish plant. It wants to climb, so much so that it was leaning over and grabbing the basil in a pot 5 feet away! I unwrapped it from the basil and gave it a chair to climb on.

And maybe this little nubby thing will be some fruit someday? Or maybe it's just going to be a new flower....

Please don't tell me it's just a weed that I've let run roughshod over my flowers. That would be a bummer, and ruin the fun I've had watching this thing with a life all it's own. I'm hoping it will produce some kind of fruit someday. It does make me think of the verse in Galatians where Paul says you will reap what you sow. Where did this plant come from? Did I sow it? Clearly, I did, the plant is growing there in my pot.

Of course Paul is talking about motivations, behaviors and attitudes. Here's the passage:
Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. --Galatians 6: 7-9 NLT

So do you think we can unknowingly sow selfish-ness, or pride? Can we arrange a pot with a bunch of nice pretty Spirit-pleasing obedience and kindness, for example, and find, a few weeks later, that a big old, choking something else is growing there? Or, can we unknowingly sow goodness and find it unexpectedly flowering and producing fruit? Hmmm.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you have a pumpkin there. It reminds me of the winnie the pooh book where he starts growing a pumpkin and is diappointed it starts out so small. Your third picture is a female flower and the male flowers do not have the little baby. If you want to try pollinating it yourself you can give it a try. Is this way too much information for you. :-) Karen

Sheila said...

I think it is a pumpkin too. I have a gigantic 1000 pound breed growing in my yard and it has yet to flower but looks a lot like those leaves.I don't know how that pot will contain it once the fruit produces. I think Karen has the content for a great blog of her own.
So Julie...how do you self-pollinate a plant?

Anonymous said...

Yep, it's a pumpkin - how fun! Perhaps a squirrel planted it there for you (we gardeners call those unplanned surprises "voulnteers"). Self-pollinating the squash plants is very interesting - makes one realize how closely we are all connected...tee-hee...

Jen

--julie said...

I had to find out about the self-pollination business from Karen on the phone, 'cuz it just sounds like it might be dirty, doesn't it?
And indeed, we are all closely connected.