Flower Pots

I really like the look of homes that have those beautiful hanging baskets of gorgeous flowers. They just set a home off right. However, I have never been able to justify the $25 or more that the pots cost to buy in the springtime. They are for sale all year, but there is a law of diminishing returns. Every year I promise myself that I will make my own beautiful assortment of flowers to put on my front stoop. Every year I am either too late or I have no clue how to go about it. And every year it is so easy to say “Next year for sure!”

Well, this year I did actually do something. Well, sort of. When I was delivering the mail, there was a third class mailing done by the Calgary Women’s Shelter and in this mailing they included a package of seeds. I guess they wanted a donation but I just took a few seed packages from the envelopes of people who had moved. That was about ten years ago. The package read NORTH AMERICAN WILDFLOWER MIXTURE: BLUE FLAX. Awesome!

There is a painting on the front of the package of a country lane and fence that are surrounded by gorgeous flowers. I don’t need to fill a country lane or line a walkway, I just need to fill a pot or two with beautiful, multi-coloured blooms. This should be pretty easy…

Well, I planted the seeds in three pots and was pretty generous with the seeds because they are over ten years old and some of them just might be duds. I put them in a nice sunny place and watered them daily, not too much, just enough for the seeds to germinate. I watched them for days and nothing happened, but eventually I did see a tiny, almost invisible sprout coming out of the dirt. That was over a month ago now and the pots are just bursting with small, green leaves of all shapes and sizes. It is wonderful.

I have never been much of a gardener, but as the little plants grew they seemed very familiar. My mom had a pretty good rock garden at the back of the garage that had many lovely flowers that seemed to bloom throughout the summer. Gram had the green thumb of the family though and her back yard looked like the picture on the package of seeds. Maybe that’s where I had seen those plants before…

Well, as it turns out, NORTH AMERICAN WILDFLOWER is just another way of saying here is a package of seeds that we collected at the side of roads and abandoned fields around the city. Yes, wildflowers are just weeds.

They are growing very well and with any luck they will have colourful flowers. The plus is that next year I should have a whole yard and garden full of them.