As it turns out, God has the greenest thumb of all

The flower beds and other ornamental plantings around our house continue to surprise and amaze us.

We are amazed mainly because we are pretty sure our house sits on a toxic waste dump. How else can you explain some of the weird things involving plants that grow from the soil in our yard?

When we moved into the house more than 15 years ago, we found one sprig of something in the backyard. It turned out to be the remains of a forsythia bush. We encouraged the forsythia every way we knew how -- with some advice from professional garden centers. The bush flourished. In a few short years, it covered an area 20 feet long and 8 feet wide. The foliage was lush and tall.

But the forsythia would not bloom.

In an effort to create more variety and more productive flower beds, the old forsythia was removed, which is a kind way of saying executed. Those plants that muck around in our garden are all headed for the same fate. The wisteria has been duly warned.

Meanwhile, another lonely sprig on the other side of the backyard turned out to be an azalea. It has flourished with a bit of tender care. The azalea is one of the astonishing beauties of our springtime display.

And our butterfly bush, after several years of languishing next to the lace-cap hydrangeas and the spirea, has become a beautiful magnet for all sorts of fluttering wonders.

Several years ago our older son sent us some starts of bittersweet, one of my wife's favorites. We were told we had to have both male and female plants. The message was that the plants would make whoopee in our backyard and soon we would be blessed with an abundance of orange and red bittersweet vines every autumn.

Well, the bittersweet barely survived. As a matter of fact, at one point we assumed the bittersweet was history. Then, last year, several years after being planted, the bittersweet soared up the board fence in the backyard and put out reaching vines. It was loaded with berries. This year the vines are even more vigorous.

This spring brought another surprise. One of our flower beds sprouted a cluster of plants we knew nothing about. When they bloomed -- beautiful, intricate soft blue blossoms and amazing seed pods -- we were able to identify them as a flower known as Love in a Mist.

Where did they come from? Who planted them? Why did they come up and bloom so profusely this year?

The answer to all those questions is now apparent: God has decided to be our master gardener.

That's the only way we can explain several other flower bed mysteries.

For example, a couple of years ago we acquired some Obedient Plants suitable for transplanting. The plants were hardy and seemed to adapt well to the move. This year the plants are even sturdier and denser.

The surprise, however, was a clump of Obedient Plant that sprang up in the flower bed on the other side of the yard. We attributed this to birds, God's little helpers.

But as the out-of-place plant grew taller and taller, it began to look less and less like an Obedient Plant. Instead, it looked like something else, something we couldn't quite put our finger on. Then the mystery plant started budding. Now we could tell what we had.

It was -- past tense -- a 6-foot-tall, lush specimen of Goldenrod.

One mystery down, dozens more to go. For example, how did the Chinese lantern plant show up in one of the beds in the front yard? Why are the zinnias so tall this year? What is the bush with the feathery leaves that forms a backdrop for one of the flower beds? Will it bloom? Why did the white Siberian Iris bed produce purple flowers this year?

What can we expect now?

God only knows.

Truly.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.