It’s summer, and summer is a good time for a break, a good time to send post cards. Here’s my summer garden post card to you.
While the “official” purpose of our garden is to grow food that we can eat, my not so hidden agenda is growing flowers.
Yes, they help attract pollinators which is beneficial for our crops.
But they are also just beautiful and fill our lives with the simple joy of aesthetic appreciation.
Lately, with my food choices limited due to multiple food chemical intolerances, growing crops I can’t enjoy fills me with frustration and a profound sense of loss – so growing flowers has become a simple pleasure unfettered by complications.
We have a patch of cosmos volunteers that come up every year without any help from us, apart from the water we use to irrigate the crops planted among this flower patch.
However, I also like to experiment with new cultivars.
As much as I enjoy observing new buds unfurling and unleashing their beauty into the garden, I also enjoy how beautiful they are as the flowers begin to fade.
Cosmos have a beautiful life cycle, and I find this a gentle reminder to accept aging and the changes that come with it.
As cosmos petals fade, and then dry, their seeds ripen, little vessels ready to transport beauty into the future.
So perhaps saving seeds is like foreseeing the future, and sowing them is sculpting the future.
While Chad and I are moving more and more of our landscaping energy into growing native plants, I think there’s still a place for glorious non-native annuals such as cosmos, poppies, zinnias, and marigolds.
And it’s a pleasure for me to share my enjoyment of these blooms with our resident hummingbirds, bees, wasps, and other pollinators.
Get more glimpses of our garden here:
Watching Our Pollinator Neighbors
We Grew it From Seed – Plains Coreopsis
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