Bloom, dammit
Oct. 4th, 2020 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflydreamingLately, I've received comments on so many of my fanfics, especially on old ones, that I feel like the weird cosmo in the back yard that has not produced flowers. Let me back up a sec...
So this spring, yes seventy-nine years ago back in March 2020, before the Stay at Home order, I cleared a patch of weedy grass and covered the cold earth with wildflower seeds. I put them in too densely because, me being Killer of Plants, I didn't think they would all sprout, let alone thrive. And boy howdy did they thrive! It was an excellent seed assortment, with blooms beginning in April-ish and hitting a peak in July. In the mix were cosmos, a daisy-like flower that blooms in late summer and autumn.
The cosmos lost ground to the bachelor buttons and poppies. They were small and sparse. Except for two. Two plants grew as thick as giant sunflowers, stems an inch thick an about four feet tall. As of early September, they had no evidence of flowering at all.
The jungle of bachelor buttons exhausted in September. They were still blooming, but pretty much done, and I cleared the patch of spent plants a few weeks ago, so that the monster cosmos would maybe produce flowers. I also tossed down some flower food granules that we've had around.
The wind and rain came, and the cosmos "trees" tipped over. I put in support. One fell over again in the heavy rain. That one, however, is showing flower buds now all over, and this morning -- a bloom! With a drowsy, wet bumblebee clinging to it.
The other one still is all green with no indications of producing flowers.
It's like the two wolves within you thing, but with flowers. I fed them both! And it's kind of that way with writing. Am I going to do it? Am I going to have a burst of updates and finished Works-in-Progess? Or am I just going to keep standing here, contemplating the sky, until winter comes?
So this spring, yes seventy-nine years ago back in March 2020, before the Stay at Home order, I cleared a patch of weedy grass and covered the cold earth with wildflower seeds. I put them in too densely because, me being Killer of Plants, I didn't think they would all sprout, let alone thrive. And boy howdy did they thrive! It was an excellent seed assortment, with blooms beginning in April-ish and hitting a peak in July. In the mix were cosmos, a daisy-like flower that blooms in late summer and autumn.
The cosmos lost ground to the bachelor buttons and poppies. They were small and sparse. Except for two. Two plants grew as thick as giant sunflowers, stems an inch thick an about four feet tall. As of early September, they had no evidence of flowering at all.
The jungle of bachelor buttons exhausted in September. They were still blooming, but pretty much done, and I cleared the patch of spent plants a few weeks ago, so that the monster cosmos would maybe produce flowers. I also tossed down some flower food granules that we've had around.
The wind and rain came, and the cosmos "trees" tipped over. I put in support. One fell over again in the heavy rain. That one, however, is showing flower buds now all over, and this morning -- a bloom! With a drowsy, wet bumblebee clinging to it.
The other one still is all green with no indications of producing flowers.
It's like the two wolves within you thing, but with flowers. I fed them both! And it's kind of that way with writing. Am I going to do it? Am I going to have a burst of updates and finished Works-in-Progess? Or am I just going to keep standing here, contemplating the sky, until winter comes?
no subject
Date: 2020-10-10 10:59 pm (UTC)Thank you for the insight on the flowers! That makes sense and is cool to know about. We've been talking about protecting the one without buds to see if it can make it through a winter, so it's good to know that the efforts would be worthwhile. I really know so little about plants at all.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-10 11:59 pm (UTC)Some plants just die off anyway when the short daylight/low temperatures get too much for them. My basil is starting to go now (I need to do that squash with barley and basil oil recipe, which requires ridiculously large quantities of basil leaves!) and nothing I could do will keep it going through the winter. Indoors basil dies back too.
Cosmos may well just rot away from the root in cold, damp soil. But you've got nothing to lose by trying...