FRETTING AGAINST GOD

I would like to welcome my friends from far and wide and I hope this day finds you well and looking forward to the wonderful Spring weather ahead. This has been a momentous winter for many across the country and my heart goes out to those who have really suffered through it. 

I titled this blog

          FRETTING AGAINST GOD 

        (BECAUSE OF MY OWN FOOLISHNESS). 

This Truth is found in  Proverbs 19:3 which states:

                       The 

                  foolishness 

                     of man

               subverts his way

                [ruins his way]

                      THEN 

               his HEART is 

                RESENTFUL 

                        and 

                      FRETS 

                   AGAINST

                 THE LORD. 

How succinct; how true! 

We blame God 

                    our Creator, 

                          THE 

      CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE

                     our Advocate, 

     The One who has good plans for us, 

                         INSTEAD 
         of blaming ourselves for our own 

                      shortsightedness,

                      our ignorance,

                     our carelessness, 

                           or even 

                    our willful actions-

                          not caring 

                       at the moment

              what the consequences might be,

                    WE BLAME GOD!

We blame God because 

                        then

we don't have to look into 

                        ourselves,

                             our foolishness....

                                 thus

                                    we don't have to face 
                                        our failures,

                                          our responsibilities,

                                             our inadequacies.

                 INSTEAD OF ASKING HIM:

                       How did this happen?

          What did I do that might have caused it?

                         What should I have done? 

           WE fret and blame God and likely may experience other foolish moments that could have lasting consequences. 

This reminds me of a foolish mistake I made the Fall of 2013 with my daylilies. That summer I had seen for the first time a much anticipated daylily bloom out of BEWITCHING EYES X PURPLE PEACE. It was a very long three year wait, as the other unbloomed seedlings that I had planted had bloomed within a year or two of planting. This one just got taller and wider and stronger. If you love daylilies like I do and work with them as much as I do you can identify with my excitement when I saw its first bloom! At that moment it didn't matter that I had waited three years...... It didn't even matter that it had only 7 buds and 2 way branching because it was only the first season of bloom. I proceeded to stare-well maybe "gaze" would be a better gardening term- at it and was just filled with thankfulness for the long awaited reward. Oh what a beauty! For you people who like to know and visualize what  I am exuding over, here is a photo of the first bloom of its short-lived life. 

It got even prettier as the summer swept by.....

before I knew it another month had gone by (actually a full 36 days later) and "Opportunity Knocks"(our pet name for it)was still blooming, with a beautiful rebloom scape by then and even when the night had reached a cool 57 degrees 'she' was still beautiful! 

I mentioned its short-lived life...and we have been talking about the foolishness of man and blaming God for our foolishness,  our mistakes, our blunders, our errors or in my case it was my impulsiveness. This was the first time I had ever moved a newly bloomed seedling the same year that it bloomed. Until that time I had ALWAYS left my seedlings  in the ground for 2 or 3 years so they could grow  good root structures and hopefully be hardy through our super cold winters. But because of my enthusiasm for the plant, and wanting to use it as a pollen parent the next summer, I moved it closer to the area of the plants that I had wanted to breed with. Not only that, I had already stressed it out by breeding with it, trying to ensure that I would have seeds from it to plant next year and continue on its line. Now if I had thought ahead and actually thought about that summer of high heat and drought-as I have mentioned in other blogs, we have "only" God's watering system, so it had gone many weeks without a drop of rain-then I would most likely still have "Opportunity Knocks'. Instead I proceeded to stress it out by making seeds on it and transplanting it after I had let it bloom out, late in the season,  disrupting its underground growth potential. I so wish I had  erred on the side of caution and not bred it nor moved it and been wise to just wait another season. When the 2013 growing season began I wasn't at all aware that this special beautiful seedling wouldn't be showing its beautiful self to me again! Thus I began to blame the weather of the past two years, not realizing that if I had only stopped to recall those very same weather situations of the past three years I would never have made the mistakes that caused me to loose that precious beauty.  Not to be....but hopefully I have learned-the hard way- what not to do in the future. 

This wasn't the only plant that I mistreated out of ignorance and enthusiasm, although I didn't lose it, Thank God!!. This was one of my own seedlings that I had nurtured and bred and was highly productive, and prolific, with a long blooming cycle and rich deep purple with a lighter edge. 

        So here is my registered GALLANTLY STREAMING which bloomed and bloomed all summer and then got "butchered" because of my foolishness, never thinking I could almost lose it by something I had done to it...after all I had raised it for many many years! You can see all the yellowing of leaves because of the drought-that should have been my first clue!

Here is another photo of GALLANTLY STREAMING and it has a bud count of 28 with 6 way branching.I had great plans for this one also, but I will most likely have to wait another year before I can breed on it. One more shot....

But instead of being patient and prudent, I just HAD to have some line outs so I could start to sell some of these beauties. Little did I know that that thinking brought me to almost lose the whole plant. I didn't even bother to take any photos last summer as, even though it bloomed it was short and struggling to make clumps again. Just a few of the line outs bloomed at all. 
So what good would it have been to fret at God and blame the weather..if I did that, I would have just turned against God instead of learning from my past mistakes, and eventually I probably would have made the same mistake again..that's how we are..human nature...how frail and ignorant we are!!

Another circumstance happened last year that if I had wanted to, I could have blamed God. But in reality it was my choice to purchase this cross of seeds on the Lily Auction and I knew the possibilities of possibly never getting anything to even live through its first winter here in Wisconsin. So imagine my thrill....excitement....JOY when I first saw this bloom in 2012.    The cross is PEARL HARBOR X BEFORE MY EYES and I garden named it "frenzy" because of its wonderful erratic behavior....in my mind as a hybridizer I made a lot of exceptions for it because it was so heavily ruffled which just doesn't happen in Wisconsin! I even "forgave" it when its first bloom was all "hung up"..here is the photo of that occurrence.....

then a few days later it improved.....

and  oh look at this edge!......

about a week and a half later it had become lighter in color but still had the gorgeous ruffling.....

then one day later, "Frenzy" had finally settled in and this is what I captured.....

You may be asking, what does this have to do with Fretting with God?  That's easy from my perspective, since I was there....you see last summer I didn't see it...I kept an expectant eye out for it; I hadn't moved it or "abused" it, I had just let it be....
I have to admit, I was sad-who wouldn't be??!! I am still hoping that it will show itself this summer and that I hadn't seen it because of no blooms showing and that hopefully its year of rest may give it the opportunity to rebound this year. I don't know, but I DO  know that I am thankful to God for the blessing He gave me, even if it might have been only for a season. I suppose some might think I was foolish to have even considered purchasing seeds from southern-bred plants....but the truth is I knew it was a calculated risk and I have been very blessed with receiving many southern genetics to mix with my northern hardy genetics...at that point I have to just realize that I am getting an education and experience "under my belt". 

As usual this blog has gotten longer than I expected, so I will leave out the story about this last series of photos with  PLEASANTLY PLUMB X RANDY STEPHENS as the parents. 

this photo was taken on its first bloom in 2011 and the next two are from this last summer 2013..so far so good! I wonder what it will do if and when we get some of the good weather we have had in the past...

I hope you have enjoyed seeing the transitions that can be expected from seedlings to maturity and that his has been a reminder to all of us to make sure we are not blaming God for the foolish things that we so often do..many times inadvertently, but we still do them! 
May our Creator richly bless you and your special daylilies this season and the years to come.    
                                                                                                                                   Nancy