I am happy to be able to cut fresh flowers for the house from my productive Zinnia-raised bed garden, my first garden. I love it all, pruning, arranging the flowers, trimming the leaves and stems.
It is beautiful, obviously, but also very creative, it is just great and satisfying fun. Maria loves getting flowers, I get a lot of points for it, and the house is always filled with fresh colors.
This bouquet is going to her study. I can’t believe how many flowers have already come from that small bed.
I’m plotting for next year, I might get a second, smaller bed.
The zinnia at the top of this pic looks just like one of mine that I cut for a small bouquet a few days ago (I love zinnias because they last so long after being cut, and because they seem to colorful and cheerful). A few days before that I had seen what looks like the pollen part (see yours in the photo) move while it was still on the plant. Then I saw another one doing the same thing. I had previously heard about that on some pollinator facebook page that I follow, so I knew it is some sort of creature (don’t recall what just now) which camouflages itself as part of a plant. And I apparently had 2 of them on neighboring blooms. Tonight, while I was looking at one of the ones I picked a few days ago, I saw it move, too! So I’ll put that one back outside. Nature is interesting.