Saturday, July 26, 2008

Midsummer Garden: Bird's Eye View

 
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Bells of Ireland


I really like these flowers. You can read about them here.

African Daisy, or Gazania

 
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Intelligent Design

 
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Conversations on the Stoop: Intelligent Design

This morning when I was weeding, a Jehova's witness who was visiting my neighbors struck up a conversation with me:

"They're beautiful, aren't they? So many different varieties. It's really amazing."

"Yes," I thought, "I work really hard at choosing varieties and colors and arranging them in a way that emphasizes the beauty of each plant and try to create a good image that you can see differently from different angles in the garden. I weed, water, fertilize, amend my soil, use organic mulch, and even grow things from seed in multi-year projects. I think I do pretty well. Thanks for noticing. (And that's not to mention all the work of botanists and others who work on plant varieties for decades.) This is the product of human effort; they don't call it hortiCULTURE for nothing. Yes, let's stop and appreciate all of that."

"You know," said the Jehova's witness, clutching her Bible, "When someone gives us a bouquet we thank them for being so thoughtful. It's interesting that when many people look at flowers like these that they don't recognize that there's a designer. Some people think that we we evolved and all that, but when you see these flowers, you know it's intelligent design."

I told her I disagreed with her because I knew she didn't realize who the intelligent designer of this particular patch really was and walked inside.
humph!