Simple Gardening | Flowers from Seed
When less becomes more
It’ll take some time with a shovel, but you’ll find it. You’ll turn the soil, pull the loosened weeds, prepare a place for flowers to bloom. A bed that runs around the house, perhaps, or maybe along a fence. Nothing fancy, just earth turned upside down.
Simplicity, here. No stringing up indoor grow lights weeks ahead of time. No cell-pack starts purchased at a crowded nursery or noisy big box store in May. No overwhelm about which to choose, how many, and how much will this cost?
No. This is gardening, stilled.
It’s just seeds, dropped by the post person into your box, and only three varieties: cosmos, dill, and nasturtium. (If you’re feeling especially wild, pincushion flower and bachelor’s buttons, too.)
Then, it’s you, outside on a spring afternoon, scattering them, tallest in back, shortest in front, cosmos to nasturtium. It’s giving them a covering of fine soil, then watering, and waiting.
Waiting for summer’s warmth and rain to do the rest. To pull flowers from hidden seeds.
There’ll be a whisper first, then they’ll come, a flush of blooms upon blooms upon blooms, wonder upon wonders. And they’ll remind, by weeks rolling on weeks, again and again, of abundance, and beauty, and more, so much more more than you could ask or think. All from seeds you held in one hand.
When less becomes more.
I love this so much! We planted a tiny bit of dill for the first time last year, thinking it would be for culinary use. I was surprised to find swallowtail caterpillars ate it up! Then we had to buy more and more (for the babies, of course. They kept coming. It was the right thing to do.) So this year a much larger portion of my tower garden will be dill....and then hopefully butterflies. I love your writing and I love this reminder of how beautiful simplicity is. Thank you.
Thank you for this post. Have you ever thought about writing a book? I like your writing so very much, it evokes a lot of feelings, even though it is mostly about house or garden topics which are usually not filled with that many feelings. I think you have a great gift there.