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Pick a zinnia and pass it on Jolee Wallace of Del Rio Vineyards takes time Thursday morning to cut zinnias at the vineyard in Gold Hill. [Mail Tribune / Andy Atkinson] Monday Aug 14, 2017 at 7:01 PM Aug 14, 2017 at 7:01 PM Greg Stiles Mail Tribune @GregMTBusiness GOLD HILL — A perennial weed patch has become a seasonal focal point for spreading cheer and goodwill along the I-5 corridor. Jolee Wallace, one of the owners of Del Rio Vineyards, first planted a splash of color between the railroad and Highway 99 near Rock Point bridge last year. Five football-field-long rows of red, orange, purple, yellow and pink jut from the tasting room parking lot. The zinnia garden attracts a steady stream of pickers, both from the freeway and closer to home, whose only obligation is to make someone's day and bring a little sunshine. "Take it to a care facility, your neighbor that might be having a bad day or to the hospital," Wallace said. "We have a group of ladies that comes out and takes them to White City for table settings at the Dom." Wallace left a book for visitors to journal their thoughts last year. "We didn't realize the impact we were going to have," she said. "One person came in the tasting room and said: 'Thank you so much, it's my daughter's birthday. She got in a car accident 16 years ago, and this is her birthday. Every year I take flowers to her at the cemetery.'" One fellow wrote he was going through a divorce and picked some flowers for his wife. "We had no idea that a stupid flower was going to have that kind of impact on people," Wallace said. As she watches from her office window, Wallace sees visitors come and go. "Ladies will come out and get the vases," she said. "But the truck drivers are the ones that really crack me up. They come off the freeway and run across the field and get a handful. They don't get vases, or anything, they just grab them, and then leave." Wallace borrowed the idea from a Central Valley tomato farmer in Yolo County, California. She professes no affinity for zinnias, but they are practical on several counts. "They're easy to grow. They start popping up a week after you plant them. They are really hardy, they grow fast and they like the heat. This spot right here gets really hot. You can cut them and they grow back really fast, that's the good part for having a free, U-pick flower garden. People can cut a whole bunch and then in a couple days come back." Even with a drip system, it's a challenge to grow the flowers on an old river bottom, Wallace said. A few truckloads of dirt were brought in prior to the 2016 growing season, but the wet winter eroded some of the soil. Del Rio planted 10 pounds of seed imported from North Carolina the past two Junes. "We try to plant three kinds in each row, so there are about 15 kinds," she said. "From last year so many volunteers came up, so we've got mixed varieties." Zinnias likely won't be supplanted by another flower, as pears and peaches gave way to the nearby vineyards. "I tried to plant a whole area at the end of the rows of native northwestern wildflowers," she said. "But they didn't grow as well this year." People are encouraged to bring their own vases, clippers and buckets. Water and vases are available for folks who don't have their own, and vase donations are accepted. Even those free things in life sometimes take a while to embrace. Diane Rasmusson said she has passed by the garden five or six times before deciding to pick some flowers. "I finally got the nerve to come in," Rasmusson said. "I heard about it last year from the Facebook page. "I think it's a lovely, lovely thing to do. I'm going to a friend of mine in Gold Hill and pick blackberries. I thought it would be nice to bring something to her to cheer her up."   — Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 541-776-4463 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GregMTBusiness, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/greg.stiles.31.