Ode to
the Marigold
~The
Marigold has always been one of my least favorite flowers. I resisted planting them for many years in
spite of their well fortified, front end cap presence at every single nursery and garden
center I went to.
To begin with, they
are yellow or orange…colors I seldom prefer outside of a Autumn landscape shot. During a long career of flower
arranging, there wasn’t anything elegant you could do with a silk marigold plant,
the best bet was to just bury it in a clay pot by itself or in the back of a color bowl.
The thing I dislike most is that they are stinky…not rotted trash or hot roofing tar stinky but plenty unpleasant just
the same. To make things even crueler they
are down there low competing with my very favorite garden smell of all time, sweet
alyssum…me and the bees…crazy-wild for it.
But that fetid smell is what makes the marigold so valuable. They will just sit there calm, peaceful and
secure in their own power, their pungent scent confusing and repelling every
starving pesky insect that thought for sure something delicious, like tomatoes, roses or strawberries, had been planted around here somewhere.
Their
“handicap” is their glory…a metaphor with a long, deep reach.
From: "Garden Table: Celebrating Bare Feet, Fresh Picked Tomatoes and Not Waiting Until Sunday Night to Grill," available on Amazon.com.
www.mangodragonfly.com
No comments:
Post a Comment