It’s been going well, but has been quite a chore, literally, to eradicate the once-beloved vinca from my front yard flower bed.
I have been noticing that sometimes I need to attack from soil level, wrapping my fingers around the stems or tunneling under the runners to pull the vines out, roots and all.
But sometimes it is very difficult to tell which stem I want to pull and which I want to leave. There are some clover stems that look similar – I am happy to pull those. But the anemone and creeping jenny I want to keep. And at ground level, all four stems are the same width.
The creeping jenny stems tend to be a little pinker, the vinca a bit greener, the anemone and clover a bit whiter. But the vinca can be surprisingly white or pink at times. The vinca tends to be smooth-stemmed, along with all but the anemone. But sometimes the anemone is surprisingly smooth.
The clover tends to be a bit curly. The vinca, anemone and creeping jenny tend to be straight, but the anemone is still very often curvy and the creeping jenny can curve around, too. The anemone and clover almost always grow up, while both the creeping jenny and vinca usually grow horizontally, but may also send a stem straight up.
So it can be really hard to know what to pull at soil level.
This morning I found that looking down from above often gives the best, most accurate perspective.
Each of the plants’ leaves are very different. So once I spotted the desired leaf, I could run my fingers down the stem and dig the errant plant out.
God’s perspective is higher and therefore wiser than ours. When we can’t make sense of all of the stressors around us, He is more than happy to help us find what needs to stay and what needs to go.
