Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Plato's Geranium



Last time I wrote about geraniums, it was the graceful tale of the last bloom of my geranium despite a long period of neglect, when most of the leaves had dried up.

This time I think the problem was that I overwatered when I first brought them home. (I had been instructed last year to water them often, because since they are hanging and exposed to the wind, they can dry out quickly.) Well, shortly the blooms all wilted and began to disintegrate. I thought the right thing to do was to pinch them off, the way you do with many flowers to encourage growth. And, of course, to water less.

Apparently geraniums are different from the flowers I am used to, because it did not work. They have not bloomed since. They've provided nice green, but since I bought them for the vibrant red flowers, it has been a disappointment.

But one morning I was in the room that opens out to the back porch, and the sunlight was coming in at just the right angle to create the geranium shadow on the curtains.

It's not anything like seeing those amazing red blooms, but it was really lovely, and the photos give an idea of that.

Fall is really here in Memphis now, and as the flowers fade, this seems like a good image for the end of summer.

(P.S. Can anyone read my curtains and tell me what they say??)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hmmmm....I don't think so.... what do they say?

Sheila said...

That's the problem. I don't know French. I had a piano student a few years ago who was taking French and tried to read them, but didn't know it well enough to make sense.

Or maybe they don't make any sense?