Zurich - Same Old, Same Old

English Marigold

I’ve written this blog for so long now, it’s hard to find something that I’m doing that I haven’t reported back on before. It’s open-air cinema season just now, so I have tickets booked for both the Allianz cinema (by the lake) and for FilmFluss (by the river). I’ve yet to visit the open-air cinema at Uto-Kulm, so I should look into that. There’s also one at Xenix, I think. So, it’s not as if I’ve done absolutely everything before ; there are some new things for me to try out even now.

I went to Basel to meet up with Steph (been there, done that) and had brunch at the Uto Kulm (but with Candice and Hye-Youn rather than with Geraldine this time).

I seem to be having a bit more luck with my balcony plants this year. Last year, I bought them as ready-grown plants, but for some reason, all the ones in the built-in planter on my balcony shriveled and died. Maybe they had some kind of insect attack?

This year, I planted from seed. I realize now that the seed packets show very magnified pictures of the flowers; they aren’t exactly misleading, but the plants that grew also weren’t quite what I was expecting. I suppose reading the packet more carefully might have helped because some of them were predicted to be 60cm tall, which isn’t really what I wanted.

Moreover, I was a bit surprised that two out of the three plants were marigolds. I had no idea that I’d effectively bought the same thing twice or that marigolds were so diverse (or the English language so poor!). In German, one was called Tagetes. I’ve actually seen these for sale and wouldn’t normally have chosen them, but I only looked at the picture on the seed packet; I didn’t even think to look what they were called. Having said that, they are actually very pretty and they’re doing a good job of blooming profusely, so I’m fairly happy actually. In English, these are called marigolds (or more specifically English marigold).

The other one was called Ringelblume in German. When I looked it up, this was also called marigold (or more specifically pot marigold). It looks completely different from the other one since it has different leaves and a completely different shape flower, so I find it very surprising that they’re both the same plant. And, to be honest, who’d have thought that Ringelblume was the German word for marigold AND Tagetes was the German word for marigold? For once, I think the German language is better since at least you expect two different plants with two different words. Rather aptly, whereas the other one was an English marigold, the Ringelblume turns out to be native to Egypt. It was meant to be! The Ringelblumen were a little slower to flower but are now doing very nicely, although they don’t seem to be able to stand up straight. Maybe I should be tying them up in some way, but I’m leaving them to do their own thing.

The final one was a chrysanthemum; these haven’t bloomed yet, but they’re almost there. Next year, I’ll sow these first and start them off three months earlier if I can. These started off growing tall and straight and looked nice and strong, but we had a storm and it was enough to break one of them in half and for the other one to lie horizontally and never to recover. I have that one propped up at the moment, hoping it will learn to stand straight again. They didn’t look that delicate!

I’ve got loads of seeds left, so next year, this will also be a “been there, done that” moment. However, I’ve learned quite a bit from this year’s attempt, so maybe next year will be even better.