The Umbrella Garden

A garden full of umbrellas? On a mild sunny day? I had to stop.

These people have always had a lovely garden, and surrounded their corner lot with prize-winning dahlias. Now, apparently, the garden is all about the dahlias with a few tomato plants thrown in. Typically, you want the sun and rain to reach the plants in a garden. I’m sure the umbrellas are there to protect the dahlias, whose large multi-petaled flowers on plants which may be 5 feet tall are easily destroyed by storms. They may be just for joy, or they may actually be growing them for a competition.

There is something I like in the choice of umbrellas, too, uniform in size and shape and style. But I wonder if they ever close the umbrellas so they can see their dahlias.