Friday’s Fave Five Flowers

For whatever reason, I planted no annuals this year. None. The first time in years.

So I needed my perennials to work extra hard for me. And they have. This week I’ve been thankful for the blooms they keep producing, just them and God, with no help from me. 

Here I salute the hardest-working flowers in my yard. (For more FFF from others, visit Living to Tell the Story.)

1. Mandevilla
A return visit!
I bought it last year and it was so beautiful, I had to overwinter it, just in case it would come back. And it did.

2. Black-Eyed Susan
This girl gets around.
Probably the most common of all American wildflowers. Maybe that’s why I like her. She’s friendly, not snobby. She grows in my back flower bed that’s drying out more every year due to a nearby now-mammoth-sized Leland Cypress, but I hear no complaining from her. She just keeps spreading. 

3. Knock Out Rose
“Leave me alone.”
I like this attitude in a rose bush. I’m a low-maintenance gal, and I respect that in my flowers, too. This one is a thing of beauty with no muss,no fuss.

4. Lantana
It draws a crowd.
As long as I don’t touch it bare-handed, we get along great (otherwise, I itch). The blooms are abundant year after year. But oh my, the friends it attracts. I love watching butterflies and bumblebees being drawn to it. They keep my mailbox in good company.

5. Hummingbird vine
Not going down without a fight.
Only plant it where you want it. I pull up more each year than I leave. But it hugs my mailbox with personality, and weaves in and out of the lantana in a friendly way, so I keep it around. Its red flowers have yet to attract a hummingbird (when I’m looking, anyway), but I don’t hold that against them.

Bonus:
Surprise lilies
Jenna took this picture last week. Aren’t these blooms gorgeous? I couldn’t leave them out. I love pleasant surprises in my yard and in my day. 

Isn’t it amazing that God placed such intricate details within each flower? Individually created by design.

If he does this with flowers—enjoyed today, gone tomorrow—how much more he adorns us.   

Thank the Father for clothing YOU with loveliness today. Enjoy beauty!

And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6:28-33