A Prayer Garden for Father's Day ~ Daddyman Diaries

I knew Father’s Day would be hard this year. This is the first Father’s Day without my Daddy. In fact, this year will be a year of many firsts. And I am not really looking forward to any of them.

The week leading up to Father’s Day was quite emotional. I think I cried every day. The pain was a bit too close to the surface and could not be pushed down.

That being said, I did not want to let Father’s Day go by without celebrating my husband and my children’s father. He deserved to be celebrated, too.

I don’t know about you but I am often stuck when it comes to gifts for my husband. I could probably buy him any tool and he would be happy but that seems like something he should pick out for himself. He desperately wants a boat but that’s a price tag I can’t afford.

My husband works incredibly hard and incredibly long hours. He rarely, if ever, has a chance to relax. So, I thought it might be fun to put a Prayer Garden in the yard. Someplace where he could relax when he finally gets home from work.

We had the perfect spot in the front yard. It was kind of bare, with overgrown trees and bushes, and lots and lots of weeds. Nothing really special about it except that it needed some TLC.

Before

Well, that and the fact that we didn’t have any plans for that particular spot.

So, I drew up some plans…sort of.

Don’t laugh. This I probably the best plan I’ve ever drawn. I’m not exactly an artist with paper and pencil.

My kids and I measured and planned and searched for every deal that we could find. I explained to anyone who would listen what I was hoping to make. I often envision things in my head but the reality is usually a far cry from what I was wanting. So, I was looking for any help I could get.

I found help at a local plant nursery. I explained that I was looking for plants identified in the Bible and handed the wonderful man at the nursery a list. He went to work.

A Handful of plants in the Bible

Aloe
Bean
Burning bush
Cumin
Coriander
Dill
Garlic
Gourd
Leeks
Lentil
Lily of the Valley
Melon
Mint
Mustard
Onion
Sage

These were the plants on my list. There were many other plants that I would have liked to add to my list (and I wasn’t even able to get all of these) but climate, budget, and space stood in the way. I found this list after doing a quick search of ‘plants of the Bible.’

I found information about plants plants of the Bible from these websites:

https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/hbd/p/plants-in-the-bible.html

http://ww2.odu.edu/~lmusselm/plant/bible/allbibleplantslist.php

We visited a pond shop, a few hardware stores, and a couple of nurseries to find what we needed. The rest we scrounged up around the house, such a mulch my husband bought and decided not to use.

During the time that we collected the materials and worked on the garden, my husband was strictly forbidden from going in the front yard. I wanted this to be a surprise and couldn’t have any snooping before it was ready.

We (mostly I) cleared the leaves and sticks from the area. We (mostly I ) pulled weeds, trimmed bushes, and pulled out a small, dead tree. We (well, you get the picture) replanted herbs and flowers and spread mulch. My girls painted rocks and I wood-burned some signs. It was a lot of hard work but well worth it.