Petunias

Summer would not be summer without petunias somewhere in my yard. I'm not as petunia-ambitious as I once was, with large hanging baskets dripping with all hues of petunia, but I do have a few pots of them this summer. They were among my grandmother's favorites, along with coleus and zinnias. She kept many large coffee cans of them on her porch, as well as in her flower beds, where they re-seeded year after year. Her coleus grew to extravagant size, often planted in coffee cans when she ran out of store-bought pots. Nowadays I never see petunias when I go home to S. Georgia. I asked my mother why. The reason? They are considered "cheap" flowers. Most gardeners, particularly those in town, wouldn't consider having them in their yards. They want fancier flowers, I suppose, from nurseries. Petunias belong to their past, when they or their kinfolks lived in the country. I rarely see zinnias, either. Coleus still hangs on, in new-fangled shades and patterns. I love it for being so easily re-cycled, sprouting new roots for new pots throughout the season.

And elephant ears! Mine never winter over, as they do in South Georgia. I didn't plant any this summer. Yes, my grandmother had them, too. My sister-in-law's elephant ears are ever-faithful! They never disappear, having such a long memory for the place where they flourish.

I keep forgetting to dead-head my petunias. That will be on my list of duties for the day, along with washing Lord Byron.

The ceramic flower- woman below was given to me by my friend, novelist and poet Isabel Zuber (see earlier post). It hangs by my back door, near the pots of petunias and coleus. Isabel says it looks like Virginia Woolf!