Toasted! (or not).

Since one of my favorite flowers is cosmos, I would really like to have them growing in my flowerbeds. I had a huge envelope of cosmos seeds in my house awaiting their distribution in their new home (thanks, Mom!). As excited as I was about this prospect, I couldn't find the seeds anywhere. I even got down and went through a large percentage of my house from the perspective of a 2-year-old, just in case. They were completely gone. The other seeds I had in tiny little packages were still in the box, nicely organized and labeled (although they had been returned to that place many times after a few run-ins with the aforementioned 2-year-old). With so many tiny packages of seeds, how do you loose the biggest package of seeds? Skill, I guess. After a few (or more) attempts at locating the missing seeds, I finally gave up and decided it just wasn't going to happen this year.

I put down some Preen (which prevents germination--beautiful stuff) and two days later...I found my seeds. Where they don't belong. In the garage. In a bucket of miscellaneous vegetable garden seeds. Grrr. Too late now, they won't germinate with that Preen laying around (but neither will weeds, so I think I'll take the trade). We had some volunteer cosmos grow last year and some of their seeds had started up, although I had been previously unaware of that fact. As these new plants approached a decent size I decided we could transplant them instead of just pulling them out (since they were in an incredibly inconvenient location). Sid was excited to dig some holes, so we went for it. It was 100 degrees the day I dug them up. And for a week afterwards. I figured they were toast (literally and figuratively). I was okay with the idea that the toasted remains of my volunteer cosmos plants would face their end in the sweltering heat since they would have been pulled up as weeds anyway.

Through this insane heat, one plant was significantly toasted, but is currently alive with new green leaves growing on it (although I doubt it will flower before the frost hits). The other eleven miniature plants I moved that day have been growing since the day they were moved (and some are even flowering). If you look closely at the picture above, you will notice a nice weed waiting to be pulled, but also that this plant leans significantly to the right. Since the heat was quite intolerable the week of relocation, the plants that are in full sun were all quite droopy and sad the first few days (except one, which happened to be the biggest one at transplanting time). They decided to bounce back and not let the heat get them down. They grew onward and upward from there and hopefully will get enough flowers (and seeds) that we will have more again next year!

I should learn a lesson from these flowers. Maybe next time life cranks up the heat, I will be able to survive and thrive despite my run through the fire, whether I am the one huge, tough plant that just carries on or one of the others that just leans a bit to the right!