By eight the balcony looks like a tiny lobby. Each petunia corolla has a door plaque no bigger than a thumbnail. The flowers greet the railing first. They nod to whoever is passing below. Only then does a bloom introduce itself by exactly one color, as if a whole palette at once would be shouting.
We asked at the kiosk. "I thought they were leftover party labels," said the woman who sells string and window boxes. "Then a pink one nodded at my hat, the plaque caught the light, and I realized I had been waving at the whole balcony instead of saying good morning to Magenta."
The gardener kept a pencil note in the complaint-and-thanks book: if the railing has not been greeted, please do not hurry the introduction. The next morning a neighbor came back with the same shopping bag and waited through the greeting, the nod, and the one small name. She said the plaques looked like doorbells that had learned to whisper.