Plants and Mother’s Day

As we approach Mother’s Day I think, as always, that it seems a holiday that is promoted by the greeting card and cut flower industries. Are there special days for positions that we really respect after all?  Is there a “Doctor’s Day” or a “Movie Star Day”? Is there an “Oprah” day?  

This gets me wondering if there are any people who automatically get respect in this day and age, and I’m thinking perhaps not.  And then, being a gardener, I start to wonder about the plants that get no respect. The Oak trees, for example. These are the trees that built this country and yet people view them as large weeds that take up space that could be filled with a spring flowering crabapple or dogwood. In Oak - the frame of civilization by William Bryant Logan, he talks about the central place that the oak has played in this country. A good read.

And how about the weeds that hold the soil on roadsides?  Not to mention the scores of plants that clean air and soil without any fanfare at all. 

It is spring, and time to celebrate Mother’s Day… AND, I hope, the amazing world around us.  Let’s get out of the card shop or florist’s and into the outdoors.