The Flower Post Is Back

Since coming to Texas, however, we have been absolutely abysmal at growing things, which is weird, because it's a much longer growing season, and also much more moisture available, yet every time we try a garden, it fails. I think there's more pests to contend with, for one, and we have different lives than we used to, much busier.

My wife is stubborn, though, so she tries every year. She usually manages to grow plants, but we almost never get any usable produce out of it. She planted a garden this year, and each time a tomato looked like it was almost ready to pick, the squirrels (or some other similar varmint) ate them before we could. And the bugs are really getting to our plants as well. Look at these leaves.

Don't know if we'll get anything from those plants.

The one things she is succeeding at, however, is the flowers. Mostly, we haven't even planted flowers, but this time around she used garden space to grow some flowers.

In ages past, I used to do a post every year, sometimes more, showing off the flowers that we managed to grow in our yard. Here's a link to 2010, 2011, and 2012, for example. Since coming to Texas, I've only posted about wildflowers that I found on my walks around the greenbelt trails, like this one from last year, or this one from 2019, and this one from 2018. 

We never had any luck with flowers we planted ourselves. So, it surprised me to see the success with these few plants that my wife grew this year. It was like a blast from the past to see this bush full of zinnias.

I took a few pictures of them. I couldn't help myself.

And this particular flower looks really nice, I think.

She also grew marigolds, which have never been my favorite flower, but they're still pretty, and growing impressively strong and lush.

Here's a close-up of the best flower I saw on the bush.

I think the reason she did the marigolds is because they're supposed to ward off certain pests, but I could be wrong. I think some flower plant does that, anyway. I guess she should have planted them closer to that plant with the shredded leaves.

Anyway, it's pretty exciting to have some actual flowers in the garden. We still can't get any produce, but maybe we can make the place look prettier by planting flowers.

Maybe next year I'll insist on filling a garden box with sunflowers. Those have always been my favorites, and I'd love to have them around the house again.