I really want to have a cutting garden, but I don’t think I have enough sun. I made tiny steps toward one this summer: successful zinnia culture (usually the slugs massacre them).
I love zinnias, particularly the single ones like this, for their lack of presumption. They know they will never be as glamorous as roses or irises, but like the steady best friend in the novel, they fulfill an important role in dignified simplicity.
I could learn a thing or two about dignity from them, I suppose. I have a hard time accepting when it’s time to take out the summer plants and make way for cool-weather types. The weather’s indecisiveness (very unhelpful of it!) mirrors my own: it cannot decide whether to be cool or warm, just as I cannot decide whether to nurse the ragged summer plants along for a last few blooms, or throw myself completely into the pansies and violas. Either set of plants has enough resiliency to withstand this iffy temperature business, but I have not developed the necessary toughness to say when enough is enough. (Guess who also cannot thin her carrot seedlings?)
Today, I am celebrating the zinnias by letting them go out at the top of their game. See you next year, my dears.
