Summary

Gardens Word on the Week 2nd May 2026.
The shift to more benign weather this week removed my last excuse for not attending to the garden! Plant growth has more to do with the longer span of daylight rather than the absence of sunlight! There was plenty of growth.
Having discarded the old crange as not being fit for purpose and purchased a new one which could chop through two inches of wood with ease, I set about my favourite task! The tool proved to be all that the makers said it would be and the shrubbery is beginning to look a lot smarter!
It’s at times like this that I hear Betty’s voice reminding me to clear away the cuttings, a job that gets postponed – it brings to mind the fall when the earth was cursed – and we receive the penalty of our inherited tendency towards disobedience! (Genesis 3 verse 17).
We had the privilege of creating gardens in each of the houses we occupied. Our trade mark was the plant, the red Lobster-claw Begonias. These were carefully dried at the end of the growing season and packed in a dry place to reappear wherever we went in our travels together!
I think my daughter Lynn, who has inherited her mother’s green fingers, has then stored somewhere, ready for planting this year when their time comes round!
Amongst the gardens mentioned in the Bible Gethsemane is the best known. It was the place where the betrayal of Jesus took place. Located on the far side of the Kedron Valley through which drained some of the sewage of Jerusalem. It was a place where Jesus and the disciples often met (John 18 verse 1).
Joseph Hart captures the scene in his epic hymn ‘Gethsemane’. Here is portion of it.
Jesus, while He dwelt below, as divine historians say, To a place would often go; Near to Kedron brook it lay: In this place He loved to be, And ‘twas named Gethsemane.
Hart sees the filth of the place as resembling the state of our hearts before God.
Sins against a Holy God; Sins against His righteous laws; Sins against His love, His blood; Sins against His name and cause; Sins immense as is the sea – Hide me, O Gethsemane!
Hart recognises his sins were put upon Christ and atoned for by the risen Jesus.
Saviour all the stone remove From my flinty, frozen heart. Thaw it with the beams of love: Pierce it with a blood dipped dart. Wound the heart that wounded Thee; Melt it in Gethsemane.
Hart pours out his heart in gratitude for Gethsemane to the triune God in the last stanza.
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, One almighty God of love, Hymned by all the heavenly host, In Thy shining courts above, We poor sinners gracious THREE, Bless the for Gethsemane.