The guy behind the zinnias

By: 
Lisa Ingebrand, LRnews@frontiernet.net

Vern Trcka stands in the zinnia garden he planted next to Dollar General in Montgomery. The flowerbed is one of two zinnia-filled plots he tends in town in an effort to bring joy to the community and celebrate the town’s Czech roots—all in honor of his Grandma Otillia, who planted (and harvested) the seed. (Lisa Ingebrand photo)

As a little boy, Vern Trcka enjoyed helping his grandma, Otillia Ziskovsky, plant her large zinnia garden every spring.

He’d walk behind her as she tenderly dropped the precious seeds into the shallow furrows, and he would cover them—ever so slightly—with soil.

“Only cover them a 1/4-inch, no more,” Trcka advised. “They’re pretty hardy, but that—the depth you plant the seeds—you’ve got to watch. It’s what Grandma always did.”

And, Grandma Otillia knew what she was doing.

She came from a long line of zinnia growers who had harvested and planted the same strain of zinnia seeds for generations in Czechoslovakia, and it was her great-grandma who carried that precious packet of the family’s zinnia seeds across the Atlantic Ocean.

“Planting zinnias was a Czech tradition,” Trcka shared. “All the gardens in Czechoslovakia had zinnias because the people would save the seeds from year to year and replant them… The flowers helped beautify the towns, and that’s just what Grandma was doing at her home in Veseli.”

The Czech-rooted zinnias grew well in Grandma Otillia’s yard in Minnesota and became a regular site in town.

“People loved them,” Trcka said. “They were beautiful, and I think people looked forward to them every year… The garden was right across the street from the church in Veseli.”

Now, Trcka plants zinnias in his town of Montgomery.

He currently tends two flowerbeds...

To see more on this story pick up the August 25, 2022 print edition of the Montgomery Messenger. 

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