This is my cutting garden from 2008. I have very little memory of doing anything other than scattering seeds and occasionally watering this patch, but do recall feeling quite accomplished at the bounty it produced. In the 13 years since then, I’ve learned it was all luck and nothing I did that resulted in such a hearty crop of zinnias. Last year’s garden rivaled this one in both the quantity of zinnias I grew and the backassward way I was blessed with them, through no skill or green thumb I can claim.

This year? I will likely have no zinnias thanks to another dose of luck – this time all bad.

Since mid-May I have planted THREE rounds of zinnia seeds. The first batch I started with such care, weeding the entire patch of ground I planned to use, adding fresh bags of garden soil (which I had no business buying on my budget) and carefully following the instructions about spacing and depth (something I don’t always do). Nothing came up. I blamed the birds for eating my seeds.

So I bought more seeds and planted a second round. This time I was more haphazard in my planting technique (telling myself it worked in years past), but made up for precision with the quantity of seeds I scattered, figuring at least some of them would take root. After two weeks, I saw maybe a dozen seedlings and none of them are thriving. I blame the heat for drying the ground and making it impossible for the seeds to take root.

Last week I decided to control both the birds and the watering, and started zinnia seeds in pots on my back deck. I watched them happily sprout within days of planting them and thought “There! That’s more like it.” This morning I transplanted them to the patch of soil I prepared and seeded twice already, but won’t let myself get excited about their potential. I’m fully prepared to be disappointed again, although I’m clearly not ready to give up. I mean, who plants THREE rounds of seeds, except someone determined to have the garden she envisions?

While I begrudgingly shoved my little zinnia seedlings in the soil this morning, I couldn’t help thinking how much my garden and my life have in common right now. Both filled with bare soil, prepared for something, but nothing is taking root. (I know my therapist would add the word yet. “Nothing is taking root, yet, Leah.”)

I walked out of my garden thinking how I don’t want to resign myself to a life without flowers, but I don’t want to keep planting gardens that do not grow or pathetically planting crop after crop trying to force something that’s not meant to be. There are things I can control and things I can’t. The metaphorical birds in my life are definitely beyond me. If they gobble up what I plant and choose to poop it out in someone else’s garden, I guess I can take joy in giving someone else flowers this summer.

But there are parts of my life I can water more often and perhaps give another chance before I give up for good. Then again, maybe next year I’ll try planting something new, stop recreating the gardens that I miss and let myself discover something I may love even more.