Weeds. If you have ever tackled yard work, you know they never stop coming.
They are relentless, especially after a heavy rainstorm. No matter how much you pull two more spring up, overwhelming your flowers, taking over the yard, and growing up your trees.
Our front garden is filled with flowers. We have roses that rise high near the back, butterfly bushes that take over the middle section, and lantanas covering the ground near the front. The roses tend to bloom first, followed by the lantanas and the bushes; the latter two stay blooming most of the summer and attract all kinds of pollinators. I love to sit on the front porch and watch the hummingbirds zoom around. But every summer the weeds try to overtake those flowers; it even got to the point where the Amazon delivery driver was afraid to pass by and left our packages on our sidewalk.
No matter what we did, even hiring a neighborhood kid to help us, those weeds just kept on coming, as the plant rebels that they are.
True, we didn’t weed-eat every weekend because life got in the way with other projects. Those weeds took every advantage and quietly grew, silently overtaking our yard every chance they got. Once within a span of what seemed a week a tangle of vines had overwhelmed one of our blueberry bushes, but I was able to rip them off and save our producer.
Even though I disliked the weeds I couldn’t help but admire their tenacity. How they kept coming back, even during periods of drought and other adverse conditions. We even have weeds growing in between the cracks of asphalt in our cul-de-sac.
Such perseverance. I found myself striving to be more like them, always moving forward, always trying to come out on top. No matter the circumstances those weeds were always there.
In our lives there were will always be things that try to keep us down. Perhaps we should be more like the weeds and grow despite adversity, continuing to march onwards to achieve our goals. Be like that tenacious plant and conquer all that tries to overcome you.
As I write this my husband is putting a new gas tank on the newest lawnmower he recently acquired. We are fixing to go do battle against the weeds and have a weekend filled with mowing and weed-eating. By the time this post publishes later in the week, we will have won a small victory, but in the long run, those weeds will be back. It’s a never-ending war seems like.
Update: We got the mowing down but the sun zapped our energy so the weed-eating was postponed. I am convinced this is why weeds love to grow when it’s hot because they know yard work in the middle of the afternoon on a hot day can be too much sometimes. Another lesson from the weeds: strategize to your full advantage.