The Zen of Zinnias

 

When we began planning our little garden in the community garden, I knew that I wanted to plant some sun-loving flowers. The first to bloom have been the zinnias. I love zinnias and have grown them at home with very mixed results. But they are very happy in this garden.

Zinnias seem to be popular with the butterflies, too.

I love the contrast in the pictures above and below.

When I was taking these pictures, I could see five different species of butterflies feeding on the zinnias. I wasn’t able to get decent pictures of the other two before they moved on. They were even coming to the ones I had already cut to take home.

(It is like a rainbow in a jar!)

My mother, who also loves them, tells that her mother always had a large round bed of zinnias in their front yard in Kentucky. Maybe that is how I came to love them so---zinnias in my genes. I didn’t get the genius, but I got the zinnias!

For my mother’s 90th birthday celebration a few years ago, I was able to buy over 100 stems (for almost nothing!) from a local country gardener who sells at the farmers’ market. My family and I arranged them mostly in Kentucky crockery and Mason jars for informal table decorations.

Recently, when I went down for her surgery on her broken leg and again to visit her in rehab, I took vases of zinnias.  I have learned that zinnias will keep much longer if the water is changed every day.  It also seems that the more you cut and give away, the more blooms come to replace them.