Count Your Blessings!

With love and passion, everyone can have a nice garden...Elaine Yim

Count Your Blessings!
Count The Garden By The Flowers, Never By The Leaves That Fall.
Count Your Life With Smiles And Not The Tears That Roll.
..... Author unknown.

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Wednesday, April 18, 2012

My Zinnia - Here today, gone tomorrow, ZZZ.....

1. Red Zinnia

It was a love at first sight when I saw these zinnias and so I purchased 3 polybags of them in different colors.
I have bright red zinnia.



2. Dwarf pink zinnia
 I have pink zinnia.

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 Gorgeous flowers on day 1.

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 Look, what happen after 2 days!
Boo hoo hoo... sob, sob.

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After one week.


All life is an experiment. 
The more experiments you make the better.
..... Ralph Waldo Emerson


6
 I have orange zinnias too.

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Aren't they lovely?

 “My Zinnia - Here today, gone tomorrow, ZZZ.....”, a copyrighted post, was written for My Nice Garden blog by Autumn Belle @ http://www.mynicegarden.com/ on April 18th, 2012

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Now tell me, who had done this ???

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. 
It's the life in your years.
..... Abraham Lincoln


Updated: Now, I suspect this


Everyday I have been picking snails from my container plants. After I started using a new organic fertilizer on my roses, there were a lot of snails. Despite the thorns, some of the snails could climb up the stems but they didn't do any big damage to my roses. I have placed the new zinnias near my roses. I thought they may just encourage each other to bloom more and be more beautiful and gorgeous. So, maybe, the pests (whatever they are) had a party. While climbing the smooth, green stems, they were eating and climbing and eating and climbing and..... until everything is finished!

Do you agree if I say that:

a) The good thing is that this is an indication that the zinnias are organically grown without harmful pesticides as claimed by the seller. Well, the snails didn't die after eating the flowers and foliage. Maybe it tasted delicious!

b) The plants didn't survive because it had no more leaves to carry out photosynthesis, etc...

c) Actually, I was lazy and didn't take immediate action. I procrastinated.

36 comments:

  1. Oh my, what a pity. The flowers are lovely.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes indeed! Actually I bought these hoping to get some home saved seeds from these cultivars that I like.

      Delete
  2. Well that is a mystery. It had to be some kind of bug or worm from the holes in the blooms of the first picture. You did not see any worms? Better watch your other ones. That is a shame. It has beautiful pink blooms.It is still green so it most likely will sprout out again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lona, I think it is the work of a leaf-eating bug. The leaves were gone first. But then again, this pest also eat the flowers as well, which leaves NOTHING for me, the gardener :(

      Delete
  3. Jakieś robaczki urządziły sobie ucztę na cynii. Pomarańczowe są śliczne. Pozdrawiam.
    Some worms have made a feast on the flower. Orange is beautiful. Yours.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Whatever it was I hope they have a stomache ache after devouring your beautiful flowers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Missy, I hope so too but I think they became fatter and bigger instead!

      Delete
  5. Oh, that is sad. I love Zinnias! Then, again, you had a great show while it lasted! Believe it or not, I use beer to drown slugs. I wonder if beer would work for snails, too?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Beth, yes indeed, I have enjoyed their beauty while the zinnias were in full bloom, eventhough it was only for a few days. Using beer? I have read about this method too but beer is expensive here. I wonder how it'll taste if the slugs are cooked in beer ;-)

      Delete
  6. oh you are posting again, i miss you! Those zinnias are so beautiful and flower while still small. I don't plant zinnia because they are very susceptible to powdery and downy mildews here. Maybe your snails eggs got in via your organic fertilizer, which could have not been sterilized. What do you think. I laughed at Missy's comment too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Andrea, I miss you too. I must admit that sometimes I'm too lazy to start zinnia from seeds and the pests attacks are quite a nuisance since I don't use chemical pesticides. Yes, indeed the organic fertilizer was homemade by the rose seller and not sterilized. Missy's comment make me smile too :)

      Delete
  7. Oh..so pretty!! Flowers make me feel happy...always ^.^

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Zinnias reminds me of mini sunflowers. I love the tiny flowers within the flowers in zinnia.

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  8. What a shock to see your beautiful flowers fading away. Those are some big fat snails! What ugly creatures. I don't have snails, but the caterpillars are eating all the leaves off my plants, too. :( Well, at least I hope to see butterflies one day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Holley, actually I was shocked and my heart sank when I first discovered this. As for caterpillars in my garden, I'll catch them and raise them in a butterfly house. This way, there is less damage to the host plant and the caterpillars are saved from predators.

      Delete
  9. The orange zinnias are stunning, so bright and vibrant, no wonder you like them so much!

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    Replies
    1. Alternative Eden, yeah, zinnias are gorgeous especially when in full bloom.

      Delete
  10. Your poor zinnias! I love zinnias as well - they are usually so carefree too, as long as you don't have a snail infestation.. Those are some good sized snails!

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    Replies
    1. Indie, how nice if those snails I caught can be cooked and eaten like escargots!

      Delete
  11. Wooo..
    Those are mean snails..
    and those were big ones...
    I often crush and kill when I see snails in my garden.
    And they can even crawl up into my hanging pots!
    That reminds me of buying a snail-killing bacteria from the nursery.

    Currently I'm using egg shells and came to know that coffee based fertiliser kills snails.
    A layer of fine sand on every flower pot also helps as those fine particles gets into the snail and irritates them.
    I have been laying few of my pots with sand and found that the plant had not been attacked.

    Im guessing there are more snails to come due to the everyday rain season now we are facing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. James, yes, mean is the word to use. But to the snails, it is their bread and butter, haha. I think they have superpowers at night, that's why they can crawl very high!

      I'm using egg shells on some containers. Thanks for the tips. Maybe I should get some used coffee beans from Starbucks. The sand idea is terrific, because I have a big bag of sand in my garden.

      Delete
  12. Oh my, they really had a feast didn't they. Looks like you need to add some predatory snails to the garden to take care of these guys.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh Carla, thanks for your great tip. Before this, I didn't know that there are predatory snails that feed on garden snails. So I google and found this link:
      http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/NE/decollate_snail.html

      I wonder where I can find such snails in Malaysia.

      Delete
    2. I would not Autumn Belle. I have the decollate snails mentioned in that article in my garden. They were accidentally brought into the garden, in the soil of plants I bought. Maybe, they were eggs and then hatch. In any case, they do eat seedlings :(. They are hard to eradicate. Unfortunately, nothing beats hand picking off the garden snail or beer traps or upturn saucer. Let them congregate and then get rid of a bunch of them. Ha, ha... my favourite control had been my bull frog Lucky, who ate the garden snails. All I found iwere empty shells

      Delete
    3. Mom on Blog, thanks for letting me know about your real life experience. About the bullfrog, wow! I have never seen a live one in Malaysia, not even in pet shops. There are many stalls selling bullfrog porridge or cooked in claypot here.

      Delete
  13. Replies
    1. Wow, Cathy, I really like your Australian bottle brush tree!

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  14. Feel sorry for you Ms Belle. Did you buy the zinnias from Delima Tani? Can't help thinking because of the organic soil used.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ash, the zinnias are from Tropical Garden at Lot 22 at RM 10 for 3. This is much cheaper than growing them from seeds. I'll buy them on impulse and they certainly give an instant lift to the garden. Organic zinnia at Delima Tani will cost about RM 10 per pot.

      I should have placed them away from the roses which have snails in the flower pots. The snails hatched from eggs in the organic fertiliser I am using on my roses. When the snails attacked my zinnias, I let it be because part of me wanted to test out how long the zinnias can take the abuse, or how fast the snails can devour the whole plant. They wallop the pink and gold zinnias but didn't touch the red one. The red one died from heat stroke I guess.

      Like Nell Jean said in my Facebook post, zinnias grown from seeds are more hardy.

      Delete
  15. You could try this way to take the snail away:To pound garlic to a pulp + some drop of dishwater, you dilute them with water and spray it into the pot.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Same problem here...but I don't have zinnias. The good thing is I'm learning a lot from helpful and interesting posts and comments. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SimpleGardenThought,

      Yeah, the best part about comments is that we can learn a lot from one another.

      Delete
  17. How pretty flowers, so great captured...thank you for sharing...
    Best regards, Karin

    ReplyDelete
  18. That's very sad! To avoid slugs and snails, I put coffee/tea grounds on the soil (in the containers). Seen some positive effect; slugs missing from the strawberry containers.

    ReplyDelete

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