Lessons from my Garden: Poison Ivy

Not only is poison ivy a pernicious weed, but it’s, well, poisonous.

My most memorable experience with poison ivy came at a church service project when I was in grad school. The stake center I attended just outside Pittsburgh had been remodeled with a new addition, and members were helping with the landscaping. Part of that process was the clearing of a hillside of weeds and brush in preparation for planting of some ground cover.

I worked without gloves, and, apparently, most of what I pulled were poison ivy vines. Within twenty four hours, the welts on my hands were red and itchy. I did the only thing I knew to do: I coated them with Calamine lotion, hoping to sooth the itching a bit. A doctor friend at church noticed my hands and phoned in a prescription for me for something that would reduce the swelling. It still took some time, but eventually the welts faded, the dryness and itchiness passed and my hands returned to normal.

When I wrote about vines a couple of weeks ago, I talked about how difficult they are to remove completely. When they are poison ivy, not only are they difficult to remove, but they can be annoying – and even dangerous in the extreme.

When I seek to protect my home from evil, I need to be careful. Sometimes that evil can be dangerous to me, even as I try to eliminate it.

When I now try to eliminate poison ivy from my tree stands, I dress to protect myself with long sleeves and gloves. I consciously avoid touching anything with the gloves I use, and I work slowly to avoid coming into contact with the poison ivy vines.

Similarly, when we seek to protect our home from evil, we can suit up in the “whole armor of God:” Truth, righteousness, faith, salvation and prayer (see Ephesians 6).

Paul reminds us: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). Dramatic? Yep. Worth listening to? You bet.

As we consider what to allow into our home, Paul’s cautionary words are a good reminder. Is that new hip TV show worth what it might bring along? Is that music (or its lyrics) suitable for all ears? Are those images that are a mouse click away acceptable? The slope is remarkably slippery if we have one foot in Zion and one in Babylon (yeah, I mixed those metaphors, but you get my meaning).

My mission president told a story he heard from Sterling Sill (a former Assistant to the Twelve, then member of the First Quorum of Seventy). When Elder Sill was a young man, he served in the military and had seen a pinup poster of whoever was on pinup posters in his day. Decades later, as a general authority of the church and in the temple, the image of that poster flashed into his mind, uninvited, unintended and unwanted. Once the image, the lyrics or the content enter our brain, they are stored and cataloged to be retrieved, sometimes when we least expect it.

Even when I am well covered, sometimes the poison ivy’s fluid finds a patch of skin. But it’s far less likely to happen if I am careful, deliberate and prepared. In the same way, when I wear the whole armor of God, I’m far more likely to be protected spiritually.

Lessons From My Garden: Water

Since I live in the Midwest, we get some rain during the summer. But we still run sprinklers in the lawn and flower beds to keep things looking good.

Some of the plants in my flower bed thrive and not so much. There are a few that seem particularly dependent upon water and are planted just at the edge of the range of the sprinklers. Those plants always look less robust than the others: the leaves wrinkle, they don’t bloom as well, and they are smaller than those that seem to be better watered.

As far as I can tell, the dirt is pretty much the same. They all get the same dose of Miracle Gro every few weeks. The big difference in their care is the water.

When I think about my own gospel experience, I sometimes ask myself how close I am to the water. If I feel my enthusiasm flag, if I find myself hypercritical of my friends at church, if I find myself complaining about being asked to serve or to attend a meeting, I have learned to ask how close I am to the water.

Unlike my plants, I can move closer if I need to (or want to). I can read the scriptures more. I can pay more attention to my prayers. I can open the door and invite the Savior into my life. I can give more freely of myself. All of those things help me to drink more freely of the living water of the gospel (See John 4).

One of my favorite promises is in Isaiah 58, a great chapter on the law of the fast. If we draw near to the Lord (by properly fasting and caring for the poor in this chapter), we are promised, “And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not” (Isaiah 58:11).

That’s something I – and the plants in my garden – would like.

Lessons From My Garden: Virginia Creeper

I am not a great gardener. In fact, I’m not even really a very good gardener. But I do enjoy working in my yard, and particularly in the flower beds that adorn my front yard. As I plant and weed and mulch and fertilize, I have a chance to think about things, and often about the lessons gardening can teach me.

Today’s lesson:

Vines are impossible to pull out from the root.

Our home is surrounded by beautiful tall trees, and in the tree stands is a mixture of English ivy, pachysandra and trillium (the last is a native wildflower in Michigan, and it’s protected by state law; I’m thrilled to have some growing in my woods). Unfortunately, we also have another vine, uninvited: Virginia creeper.

The Virginia creeper is an invasive species not native to our area, likely introduced (according to a ranger at a local park) by homeowners who were trying to provide quick groundcover (like those who planted my English ivy, which is also not native to our area). The Virginia creeper grows fast and stands taller than the ivy I want, and shades it so it does not thrive.

Unfortunately, the Virginia creeper is almost impossible to remove. Even if I am successful at getting a vine in my hands, quickly I discover it’s wrapped around the English ivy vines; pulling out one means pulling out the other. So at best I can pull up only part of the vine.

Most years I keep ahead of the vines pretty well. This year I was late to my weeding of the tree stand on the north side of our house, and I discovered (well, my lovely wife pointed it out to me) that the Virginia creeper had crossed the path and begun to climb the house, Jumanji-style. In fact, it had wrapped itself around a basement window, climbed under our siding at one place, and climbed the wall toward the roof in another. And I also discovered a couple of vines that had worked themselves under the corner molding of our siding and climbed the entire distance to our roof in the dark, seeking the light at the top. Left unattended, the vines could have done some real damage.

Here are some lessons the Virginia creeper teaches me:

1. Although it is a “benign” plant, it can be destructive if it’s growing where it shouldn’t. There may be “good” things that if they are done to excess or are in the wrong priority in my life, they can be harmful to me or to my family.

2. Because it grows taller than the English ivy that is meant to be there, the Virginia creeper can stunt the growth of the desired ivy. Like the tops of the trees that became too strong for their roots in the Allegory of the Olive Tree (see Jacob 5:37), the Virginia creeper can upset the balance in my tree stand. I need to preserve proper balance to nurture the things I want to grow in my life.

3. Pulling the creeper out by the roots is nearly impossible because of the length of the vines, and the fact that it is intertwined with the desired ivy. I cannot remove evil from the world. I can’t even remove it from my family’s view. I can do my best to keep it at bay; I can teach my children how to avoid it, I can try to keep it from my house. But I must be constantly aware of its potential influence.

4. Finally, there are some who might argue that I should let the Virginia creeper flourish. They may say that it is as reasonable to grow it as to grow the other non-native species I have in my tree stand. But I am the gardener here, and I get to decide what should be there and what shouldn’t. Similarly, my Father in Heaven is the gardener in my life, and he gets to choose what is right and what is not. It’s not up to me to decide what is evil, but to look to Him and His prophets, ancient and modern, to help me understand.