Tradition! (Cue the Fidler On The Roof music.)

I had lived here about three years when I finally got around to planting some flowers. After renting for twenty years, I'd acquired no gardening knowledge. The only flower I could identify was a dandelion. Armed with that and some enthusiasm, I went to my neighbor's flower stand to make my first purchase. I bought two kinds of flowers: begonias and petunias. Rob helped me decide, which boiled down to the two of us looking at flowers grouped together on the "shade loving flowers" side and picking flowers labeled begonias, and then looking at flowers grouped together on the "sun loving flowers" side and picking flowers labeled petunias. Now we knew a new thing: begonias like shade, petunias sun.

We wheeled our haul home on our wagon, which should have been my first clue that there was trouble ahead. I planted begonias in my big, cement planters, which I was wise enough to put into place before I filled with dirt. OK, Mark put them there. I planted a bunch of petunias in pots and placed them in my sunny back yard. I'd filled all my pots with a third of my flowers. So I kept planting. And planting. And planting. All the ones in the ground died within the week. I don't know why. The second thing we learned was that when you know nothing about flowers, don't start with a wagon load.

The petunias in the back yard died a slow, merciless death. First, the dog knocked the plants over, repeatedly. I finally found a safe spot for them along the garage. Then the deluge hit. I'd never noticed before that when we had a hard rain, all the water flowed over the top of the gutters and created a water fall, a hard, damaging waterfall. My petunias didn't die quickly; they just looked really bad all summer.

There was some good news. Rob and I spent that summer checking out everyone else's flowers with a new-found enthusiasm, as if we'd earned a place among the gardeners with our hard work. Every where we went, we'd look at the flowers and ask, "Which are those, petunias or begonias?" Our world had expanded. As the summer progressed, the begonias in the front pots flourished. I'd gaze out the windows at them, water them, and I love them. I think they loved me back. So the next year, I bought just the right number of begonias for my front pots, planted them, and was 100% successful with my flower gardening!

This year as I planned my "annual" Memorial Day flower purchase and planting, I realized I'd reached a milestone in my gardening. I had a routine, a routine I knew worked. I was embarking on my third year of flower planting, like regular people! I enjoyed anticipating this one, little slice of predictability out in my yard communing with nature.

I trotted off (with no wagon) to purchase my eight dollar's worth of plants at the neighbors. When I got there, there were no begonias! I stood there in their driveway dumbfounded. I needed begonias. Someone wandered over to help me and explained that the flowers for sale in the driveway were what was left over after their big corporate sales. It seems my neighbor supplies the University of Rochester with its begonias. As far as I'm concerned, the U of R stole my begonias.

I only knew one thing: I can grow begonias. Eventually Sandy, my neighbor, came out and commiserated with me, since I was finally able to convert from just standing in her driveway dazed to being able to verbalize my problem. My real problem wasn't that I needed begonias. I just needed flowers to grow in a shady spot with my very limited knowledge!

She suggested impatiens. In the end, the lack of begonias was just the push I needed to try something new. I'm falling in love with my impatiens.