They're So Cheap!

On these cold winter days I have been amusing myself ordering seeds. 

The fact that my soil is inhospitable to seedlings, I can't get them enough water to get started, and I have nowhere to germinate them early indoors is no impediment. I have had no luck growing anything from seed here, but no worries on that score. I'm buying seeds. They're incredibly cheap.

Here are some of the seeds I just ordered:

Gaillardia aristata. A quarter pound of blanketflower seeds is a lot. Enough to make a giant meadow and then some. I only want a few of these sweet flowers scattered among my existing flowers, but they are so very inexpensive that I ended up with a big linen bag of seeds.

A soft, pretty blanketflower - Gaillardia aristata.
It wants full sun, but did better in shade under the aspens for me

Nicotiana. I grew both Nicotiana alata -- jasmine tobacco -- which was pretty and fragrant, and Nicotiana sylvestris -- woodland tobacco -- which was huge and bold, in my garden back east.

Nicotiana sylvestris (above) and alata (lower) in my old gardens in CT

I'll try both tobacco varieties in shade here. The giant woodland tobacco will actually be grown in a big 20 inch pot. I found a fabulous 2007 article about doing just that in, of all places, the archives of the Hartford Courant. So of course I have to try it.

Scarlet Sage. I've had 100% failure growing perennial salvias in my Santa Fe garden despite their adaptability to our climate. So I'm going to try a tender salvia and grow it as an annual, tossing it out after the season. I love the Salvia coccineas, the clear red sages. I got seeds of 'Summer Jewel'.

Scarlet sage is too tender to winter over, so I will grow it as an annual.

Zinnias. Why not? A seed packet is so cheap! You can pick up full zinnia plants at any box store in spring, but I specifically wanted orange and white 'Profusion' zinnias last spring -- they're small and tidy and did well for me one season -- but I could not find them anywhere last year.

So I'll grow my own from seeds this time.

There are lots and lots of the 'Profusion' zinnias in all colors.
I grew orange and white ones two years ago and liked them.

'Black Barlow' Columbine. 'Black Barlow' is one of the few columbines that comes true from seed. I planted this moodily dark columbine in my old garden, saw it one year and then never again. Gone. Until fully five years later, it suddenly appeared once again and was glorious.  

'Black Barlow' has a rich, dark flower. In my former garden one year it was spectacular.

It reappeared after all that time in a different spot than where I had originally planted it, so it was the scoundrel seeds hanging around in the soil that were biding their time. I'll be interested to see what the seeds do here. I have two plants of 'Black Barlow' already growing under the aspens, and will add these seed grown companions and see if they all get along.

Cosmos. An impulse buy. This is 'Apricot Lemonade'. If you were sitting inside on a cold winter day could you have resisted that much refreshment? So I got a little pack of 25 seeds and they cost almost nothing.

Tell me you wouldn't want an 'Apricot Lemonade' on a hot day. 

There are others -- once you start ordering seeds and see that dozens of choices all come to $10 and you have a budget above that, well, it's hard not to collect more and more seed packets.

It's going to be a huge challenge to start any of these and baby them through seedling stage, and then get them transplanted out into the garden and keep the shallow roots hydrated. Right now they are all promise and potential. Come summer they will be frustrations and I know that. 

But they didn't cost much at all!