Zinnias

For as long as I have been gardening on my own, I have planted zinnia seeds.  

I plant a mix of tall and bush zinnia seeds plants and always a row or two of the cut-and-come-again variety.  

In seed catalogs and at the garden store seed pack rack, I pour over the zinnia options in search of the year's planting seeds. I've fallen for dwarf zinnias and seed packs that show variegated flowers.  Sometimes I choose large pin cushion flowers and other years an assortment of small cheerful blooms.  I love them all.   I consume information about zinnia growing and eagerly await my first bouquet of the year.  This year, I came across some heirloom zinnia seeds, with packets illustrated with flowers so lovely that I couldn't resist adding them to my rows of zinnias.

I planted them a bit late, but like the other plants they are coming up nicely.

I'm excited to walk outside and cut bouquets later this summer; I'll surely make dozens of pictures of those bouquets.  But for now, I wait and admire the zinnias pictured on the seed packets, confident that the real thing is just around the corner.