The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Life!

November 7, 2008

Go green with those red Christmas flowers

Inside Out column

By Bev Davis

OK, so you already know I’m a friend of animals, right? Well, I also hold plants in high regard as well.

Right about now, churches, offices and homemakers are ordering poinsettias to decorate for the holiday season.

Great! I love poinsettias, and the fact they now come in a variety of colors is super.

It’s what happens to these beautiful, vibrant plants when the season winds down that I find to be sad and wasteful.

Even artificial Christmas decorations get better treatment. They are carefully wrapped and stored for use again next year.

But not the poinsettias. Thousands of them, still beautiful, strong and full of robust color, are discarded like common trash.

As one who believes God is the creator of all things, I believe we need to practice better stewardship of the wonderful resources He has given us. Many churches use poinsettias because of a Christian legend attached to them. How sad to take something that’s considered close to being sacred for a few weeks and then dump it like last week’s garbage. I wonder how God feels when He sees us show such little respect for such beautiful living things He made for us to enjoy.

Good stewardship starts with the purchasing. Don’t buy more than you need. I’ve seen churches with rows of poinsettias stuffed together and positioned in so many places the sanctuary looks like a funeral home.

Any good decorator will tell you less is more. Beautiful plants, well placed, will garner far more attention and appreciation during the season. It’s also easier to water them and keep dying leaves pulled off.

At the end of the season, if there are leftover plants at your office or church, consider recycling. If you don’t want to re-grow the plant, separate it from the potting soil, shred it or tear it into small pieces and use it as compost. Dump the remains around that rose bush or on that little plot where you grow vegetables in the summer. It’s far better to let a living thing decay and go back into the earth to provide life for something else than to stuff it into a garbage bag and have it hauled off to the landfill.

Appreciate the fact it has given its life to beautify your home, office or church, but it still has life-giving properties that can be perpetuated in other forms. If you purchase one or more for your church, take the responsibility for the recycling of the ones you bought. Don’t leave them for someone else to throw away.

Add the potting soil to your garden or use it to re-pot that houseplant that’s become root-bound.

If we all gave it a little more thought, I’ll bet we could come up with all kinds of ways to put leftover poinsettias to better use.

If each of us would just find a way to recycle those we purchase, it would make a huge difference.

This year, give a plant a second chance.

— E-mail: bdavis@register-herald.com

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