Triumphs and challenges abound for the gardener. The vegetable gardener, flower gardener, even the gardener of containers suffers from periods of dissatisfaction. When these low points arrive, it's wise to write them in your garden journal and take a photograph. A valuable lesson can be gained by doing both, there's time to reflect and view the offense, corrections can always be made at a future date. In my paid position as an estate gardener, I find areas of a garden that might be lack luster can become successful with this trial and error approach.
At home, in my own garden, it's an entirely different story. Experimentation rules! I don't plan for success, at least not the kind that involves designing for the far future. The idea is to try something new, and in this space annuals find a home every year, lots of them. If anything, I hope for that glorious mayhem, I have seen it done well, the gaudy blends of orange and pink, something that is much harder to accomplish that you would think.
For spring of 2017, I planned for things to be a bit different (of course). When buying seeds this spring, I purchased all three colors of purple 'Benary' zinnias. With that I also bought oodles of purple Gladiolus 'Violetta'. My usual zinnia 'Benary' colors were also bought, but to a lesser degree, salmon, green, and white are scrumptious. Gloriosa lilies, six each of two colors were added, a blue climbing snail vine, and some coleus for cutting. This whole plan was actually hatched by a desire to try all of these plants as cut flowers. Things like alternanthera, tuberose, salvias, well these are a given, and they cut well too.
As June and July passed, the zinnias grew, so tough and reliable, if only all plants behaved this way. The gloriosa lilies were a failure; well one grew and flowered very early, too early. The snail vine hasn't flowered yet and the gladiolus are okay, but the oddest color of purple, not a match for the lavender/purple zinnias. But luck would have it that I already have Hydrangea 'Endless Summer' and Allium 'Millenium', one of the greatest new perennials that flowers for at least two months in summer. So bountiful were these established plants, that it was easy to create a pleasant floral bouquet, enhanced of course by my purple zinnias. In my book, this was a triumph, although achieved serendipitously.
If there's a lesson to be learned, gardening is good for you. Emotionally we leap and fall. The more you plan and the more you work at it, the better it might be. It's a humbling experience.
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