Angelkeep’s annual patio pot of zinnia always provided entertainment.
A clipped bloom became a kitchen window mini-bouquet. Hummingbirds, swallowtails, and dragonflies have been photographed perched on a zinnia. Where a bloom was snipped off, deadheaded, the stem forked and grew two next generation buds. Snip again for grand-blooms. It didn’t take a village to grow a zinnia, zinnia’s pot was a village.
Zinnia’s name honored Johann Zinn who lived in the mid-1700s.
Macro photos of zinnia were amazing. One famous zinnia bloomed when grown in microgravity within the International Space Station. Zinnias grow white and every color of the rainbow except blue.
Zinnia bloom anatomy got complicated, but interesting.
Zinnias bloom in various forms. Angelkeep grew composite or compound flowers. Outer petals, called ray florets, of various colors attract pollinators of the best types. It was the bloom’s center, scientifically called a disk, where wonderment ignited through the eye of a macro lens. “V” shaped hairs looking like antlers radiated from the disk are actually stigma of the ray florets. Their duty became receiving pollen. Individual disk segments grew in rings bearing the name anthers. Anthers (not antlers) produce pollen. It’s the macro blooms that sprout from this complex center where the magic truly begins.
From one, upwards to a dozen, yellow disk florets can pop up from the center. They look similar to a five petal lily, or like a Texas yellow star bloom. Angelkeep expanded a single disk floret via a macro photo to visit its macro scrumptiousness.
Angelkeep grew a mixed zinnia pack. One hot pink bloom with a cone center disk held nine disk florets. A macro photo enlarged a single disk floret to seven inches on a computer screen. Wow! A flower within a flower where each of five petals held hundreds of tiny hairs completely covering its surface.
After converting the same photo to black and white, the hairs looked very similar to hoarfrost. The floret’s standing hairs were not crystal shaped ferns or flutes, such as hoarfrost grows in the humid cold. Angelkeep macro photographed hoarfrost upon every opportunity. The macro bloom petal looked more akin to a cat’s bristled, arched back. Hairs stood upright, yet soft and fluffy to the touch. Hairs glistened and sparkled as though made of spun glass. The finest of bristle brushes.
Each of the disk florets had its own center. Technically it was named “stigma of the disk floret.” It served as the pollen receptor for the tiny blooming disk floret. To the naked eye it looked a lot like the very tip of a yellow Crayola pencil lead. Via macro its look became similar to a pentagon lampshade finial or flagstaff topper. It expanded as it went upward, turning with a ridge separating the sudden narrowing form of a cone top. The top displayed in bright yellow. Its lower segment’s dark hue seemed almost black.
Dad’s huge farm garden in the 1950s partitioned off a corner for elementary age sons’ garden plots. Zinnia always found a place in one son’s portion. After Dad returned his family to Craigville, a goodly portion of the empty lot owned between our house and E.U.B. Church became garden. A son’s portion continued to include zinnia among desired veg. Zinnias were long considered a desirable garden companion plant. It benefitted the other plants. One advantage came as it deterred whiteflies which lived and ate on the lower side of leaves. Zinnias attracted whitefly-eating predators. Marigolds repelled tomato whiteflies. Whitefly deserved an Angelkeep Journals feature.
Angelkeep grew up planting zinnia beginning on a Uniondale farm, then Craigville, before Angelkeep. Angelkeep was the son of the farm gardener that loved his zinnia crop. The Craigville zinnia garden row’s location had been Grandpa Hetrick’s farm before Craigville was platted. Zinnia represents a family village. Grandpa Peter sold the lot where his 3x-Great-grandson grew zinnias.
Grandpa Peter, or just Grandpa as called by all folks living in and around the village, was invited to return from the dead for Genealogy Society’s Cemetery Walk. He promised to present his life’s story, including launching Craigville village. Visit the Wells County Historical Museum this coming Sunday at 2 p.m. to hear and see bits of the past resurrected. Take along your old Craigville photos to share with this old Craigvillesonian…please.
After autumn’s frost, save zinnia seed for next spring’s planting. Zinnia prefers “in situ” or seed-grown, not transplants.
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
