Wow, what a list. Which ones have been the best bee and butterfly magnet? I'm just getting started with my seeds. James

I saw a lot of butterflies on the Purple Prince zinnia. Bees...IDK, I have white Dutch clover I see them on. Tulsi (Holy Basil) drew hundreds of little beneficial wasps and flies.

I am working toward sturdy, heat tolerant, drought tolerant, self sustaining beds of beneficial insect and hummingbird attractors that also make me happy. Not much to ask, right?

Sounds like a plan, Amy! hahaha

moth mullein (maybe)
milkweed (2 types if they survive)

red hollyhock

black hollyhock
multi-colored hollyhock
coneflowers (gobs and gobs, I tell ya)
zebrina malva
cupid dart
poppy

cosmos
zinnia

nasturtiums
marigolds

bachelor buttons
4 o'clock
true lavender
munstead lavender (Yeah right on the lavenders)
Lion's Tail
blanket flower
goldenrod
maybe red and blue salvia if I have space

Amy, I'm also going for the same thing, only add in that I want ones that I'm not allergic to, so no goldenrod or chamomile here. (Honestly, goldenrod is as bad as ragweed for me.)

So far I just have shasta daises and black eyed susans in, but I'm also planning on Mexican sunflower, cosmos, gallardia, and zinnias, in addition to my huge stand of Asiatic lilies.

I got the canterbury bells in a trade, don't even know if they'll geminate. I think they get moved to the B team. Annuals like allysum and cosmos and sometimes petunias and marigolds get planted on the edge of a bed or maybe a pot. It's the bigger perennials I have to find a home for, LOL. And I want kind of a "desert" bed for the real low water plants, so I don't overwater them. I'm a sucker for anything that flowers apricot or peach. Maybe I should plant a peach bed.

I was looking yesterday, the yarrow is greening up, tansy - which it seems the chickens don't eat and the mums. I'm hoping the comfrey comes back. I need to secure those beds from the chickens and give them a chance to grow! I told my daughter yesterday I need a chicken tractor for the front yard so they could eat the weeds in front.

My yellows and Goldens garden is coming together

I have seed for:

Lemon drop marigold

Lemon gem

To tickseed

Evening primrose

Golden poppy

Mammoth Russian sunflower

Petite yellow marigold

Lemon queen sunflower I am also going to do some nice plain green for a filler. This will be a raised bed 2 x 16 using cross ties. I am putting on my new corner so my neighbor had something to look at out their window besides my scraggly trees

When most of it blooms I will take some pictures and send a nice one to my cousin for her packer backer restaurant. I hope it looks as good as I think it will.

Will all of these be OK to direct sow?

I winter sowed my evening primrose. It takes 2 years to bloom. They are tiny, nondescript, kind of messy looking flowers that were a disappointment to me. and they were 4 or 5 feet tall. I grew it because of this article which claims you can eat the flowers, leaves and roots. If I remember, leaves were hairy and tough. Never tried the flowers or roots. I guess primrose oil is a thing, but made from seeds? If you expect long lasting yellow flowers, plant something else. I expect they are good for beneficials. I was told they self seed rampantly.

Thanks Amy. I will throw them in there and maybe next year... well this bed and another are going to just be a mess of stuff. No rhyme or reason except that the sunflowers will go in one corner. I have a lot of flowers seeds to use and I want to see some flowers this year. My other mixed colors bed I have already been mixing small packs of seeds I don't even know what's in there. That way if it doesn't come up I won't be too sad. Lol

I haven't even narrowed my flowers down yet. DH had allergy testing done so I have to watch what I plant now, sadly. No sunflowers for me....*insert sad face*. I have hibiscus seed that I bought that is supposed to have dinner plate sized blue blooms with pinkish centers. I really hope they germinate!! I checked my cuttings from my rose of sharon and they are green, so they made it through our so-called winter this year. I also checked my crepe myrtle and oakleaf hydrangea and they are also green under their brown bark. Yay!

I think I'll finally get some seeds planted this week. I don't know why I really even bother planning anything anymore because something always gets in the way and my plans get revamped.

Oh, I did buy a package of bulbs, can't remember what they are at this exact moment, but there were 100 in the pack. Good thing I have kids.....muwhahahahaa!!

I can't wait to see COLOR COLOR everywhere!!!

Me too, Melissa!

February's color generally is lacking, but we have bluets (which have tiny purplish flowers), henbit (purple), spring beauties (white with pinkish stripes), daffodils (yellow and gold) and plums (mostly white with some pink) in bloom at our place so there's beginning to be some little bits of color scattered here and there. March will be so much better. There are tons of flowering annuals and some perennials in the stores now, but I don't really need any of them. I just have to patiently wait for mine to sprout and grow.

I enjoy seeing the color too though not necessarily weed type in my planting areas. Our local lawn guy said that rain was great for business cause now he can get busy spraying everywhere. Yuk

You know, we checked into getting our yard sprayed. Well, let me correct myself...."I" checked into it. DH said he was not paying someone to spray. After talking to a few people about it, I highly agree. Our neighborhood mostly gets all their lawns sprayed. I think as long as your yard is kept clean cut and nice, as our bylaws state, then we're good. I honestly am not paying $150+ to get it sprayed and that's only one application. They usually recommend 6 per year! Like, think of all the seeds I could buy?!?!?!?! I think I might just educate myself on my lawn spraying to get rid of weeds. Besides, once I have colorful beds who will notice any weeds, right?!?! :)

Wow, Melissa, is your yard really large? I can get mine sprayed for about $50 and he only recommends maybe 3x per year. I only gave in because I had dallisgrass that I couldn't get under control.

Re: Flowers...I just did a few "wintersowing" containers, except no tops, on some wild flowers and a couple sets of seeds I picked up at last year's SF. I direct sowed the rest of each packet. Let's see if I can remember: Mexican hat, clasping coneflower, prairie coreopsis, gloriosa daisy, red salvia, larkspur, purple prairie coneflower, blackeyed susan, desert willow, false nettle. The other day I placed an order for a few others: more rudbeckia, cleome, rose campion, love in a mist, and verbena bonariensis. I can't remember the other order except I know it had partridge pea in it (host plant for sulphur butterflies)

We have several neighbors who have had their lawns sprayed the last 2 falls. The next door neighbor has a strip of grass between our yard and his driveway that he spent all summer seeding, fertilizing, weeding, etc. It's still almost bare while our yard always looked healthy and green. Of course it helps that the husband does the mowing and waits until seedheads start forming. As long as it stays out of my garden, I don't mind. I keep the garden section under control, he does the rest.

Lisa, Luckily we have a field of partridge pea growing right beside us, so our butterflies can enjoy them without me actually having to plant and grow them. Those things are invasive! One popped up in the veggie garden about three years ago. I thought it was cute when it was small and let it stay. Well, since the garden soil is so much richer than the pasture soil next door, that thing quickly got about as big as the house and I had to prune it back hard over and over. Finally I got tired of fighting it and dug it up. It took a lot of digging. The next spring, when its children tried to pop up in the garden, I weeded them out religiously. Be sure to put yours somewhere that it can grow in a thuggish manner and not get in the way of anything else. The plants are beautiful, and in a cultivated garden they look a bit more tropical than they do in a pasture, but they grow rampantly and reseed rampantly......and the butterflies really do love them.

I am not a fan of spraying yards for weeds, though I understand why people do it, especially if you live in town in actual neighborhoods where other people can see your lawn. If there was a way to keep the spray over the property being sprayed and not have it drift into a veggie garden and damage/kill plants, I might not be so opposed to it.

We do not use herbicides on our property. Our neighbors and the county road workers, railroad track maintenance crews and utility crews use enough herbicide to endanger and damage our garden with herbicide drift multiple times per year, so the last thing I am going to do is add to it.

We really ought to do something to try to keep the yard's crab grass and dallisgrass under control, but then, weed seeds travel freely here through the air, rain runoff, etc. so I don't think we'd ever achieve lasting control. Rural living means, at least in my book, just having to put up with more weeds and with less perfect lawns. It doesn't bother me at all. Our house sits back 300' from the road and up over a hill from the road, so the only folks who can see our actual lawn itself are people who drive up the driveway to our house. With a big pasture and the front garden between the roadway and our house, the driveway is really the only sign that there's a home here. During the growing season, the garden blocks anyone from even seeing the house from the road---not by design, but just by the lay of the land and the height of the garden plants.

Since we have chickens and one large spoiled Tom Turkey that free-range pretty much every day of the year, there's no way we're going to spray anything anyway, for their sake. I'd rather have a yard with weeds and wildflowers growing in it, dotted with chickens running around eating bugs, than some perfect green carpet of grass that must be chemically maintained, heavily watered and mowed twice a week. If we didn't have free-range poultry, I might break down and treat the lawn itself to keep out the dallisgrass and crabgrass because I hate them both.

We still have to mow once or twice a week to keep the grass neat and tidy and short enough that snakes cannot disappear into it, but our yard never will be accused of looking green carpet-like and perfect, not even on its best day. I wish that the American people would devote 25% of the time they spend maintaining essentially worthless perfect-looking green lawns instead to growing yards and gardens that nurture all the little creatures that share the earth with us. A lot of us garden for the butterflies, bees and birds, but I wish more people would do it.

We never could go back to city living now that we've lived in the country for so long---y'all just know that we'd have the one house on the block that was filled with wildflowers and buffalo grass instead of the regulation highly manicured lawn, and all our neighbors would hate us. And I wouldn't care either!

My little sister's best friend's mother tore out her perfect St. Augustine lawn in Texas in the 1970s/80s and planted a mix of native wildflowers and grasses. It was a huge scandal at the time and she met with a lot of resistance from her neighbors and the city. I adored her and her yard, so maybe her actions planted a seed in me, pun intended, to not worship at the altar of the perfect green carpet of grass. When we lived in Fort Worth we also had that perfect green carpet of St. Augustine grass that we religiously mowed, fertilized and watered. It looked great. It looked sterile. I made as many planting beds as possible in the front, side and back yards so that, over time, the area devoted to lawn shrunk down significantly. We really "had" to move to the country to that we could live a different lifestyle not devoted to lawn maintenance, and I'm so happy we did.

Dawn

Dawn...I agree. I wouldn't do it either, but we apparently have a new lawn inspector who is quite devoted to his job. He's been sticking signs in people's yards left and right. Mostly it is a shaming technique, but it escalates to a fine. Dallisgrass grows a foot the day you mow it, I swear.

My sister is in constant contact with the hoa and really walks on the edge of rules with her gardens. At least she has color in her yard. All the others up and down the street are green grass and shrubs

Dawn, I'm with you--can't imagine moving back to a suburban neighborhood. And I'm also not a big fan of lawns. Or spraying in them. I'm almost embarrassed at how nice our lawn looks in the summer. Makes me feel like a bad gardener. lol. People don't believe the lawn is really just a tiny bit of fescue in the shade, Bermuda grass everywhere else with a large helping of crabgrass. And other assorted weeds. Weeds don't look that bad if they're mowed. However, the flower and plant beds have made heavy dents in the square footage of the lawn in just 3 years. Just a guess of 400 square feet less of lawn so far. . . shrinking, shrinking. Have grand plan to subtract another 200-300 sq feet this year. And will also gain the top large terraced area. Woo-hoo!

Lisa, I love your yard and garden and know you'd never use chemicals if you could avoid doing so. I agree that a lot of yard/landscape shaming goes on nowadays. It has been that way for decades, but I still think it is just about as bad as it ever has been, and that's doubly true in housing developments ruled by HOAs.

I hate Dallisgrass and crabgrass with a passion, and I might actually spend time trying to get rid of them if (a) being in the garden (with no weedy grasses allowed) wasn't more fun and (b) we didn't have free-ranging poultry. A person has to pick their battles, and I've chosen to just let the weedy grasses in the lawns win. Really, when you're surrounded by thousands of acres of grassland and have a couple dozen different prairie grasses growing in the fields surrounding the yard, who's gonna say anything to us about having weeds in our lawn? I'm so thankful we don't have to answer to the peer pressure of picky green-lawn carpet-loving neighbors, lawn inspectors (I didn't know such a thing existed!) or HOAs. When we lived in Fort Worth, the code inspectors would ignore a tall lawn for a long time as long as there wasn't a junky, non-running car sitting in the lawn with grass growing taller than that car. They sure didn't like it, though, when our friend planted that wildflower/prairie grass lawn....and her house stood out a lot with that lawn, probably in a way most people thought was negative, but I loved that lawn. It had life....butterflies, bees, hummingbirds, toads, frogs, lizards, etc. It was an oasis of life in a neighborhood of sterile green lawns with the same standard oak trees, evergreen shrubs, monkey grass and caladiums. Just driving past her yard and looking at it made me smile---even in late summer when the wildflowers were past their prime and setting seed.

Kim, We've never lived in a neighborhood with an HOA and never will. It would drive me bonkers. We've had friends get in trouble with their HOA for growing sunflowers in the back yard. Why? Because the sunflowers grew taller than their wooden stockade fence, which I guess forced other people to look at the horrors of sunny sunflowers towering above a backyard fence. It was ridiculous. Some HOAs are not too bad, but others are utterly ridiculous. In some neighborhoods, the HOA gives you a list of approved plants and you can only plant items from that list. Oh please, is everyone so desperate to live in a pretty, upscale neighborhood that they trade in their freedom for a list of plants they're allowed to grow? If I had to live in a place like that, I'd be at war with the HOA all the time....openly rebellious and fighting it. I guess I'd be in trouble all the time. Having said that, I wouldn't move to an HOA neighborhood in the first place because, when you move to a place like that, you know what you're getting into and probably shouldn't move there if you don't want to deal with a somewhat militant HOA. I'm sure some people have lovely HOAs and adore them, but no one that I know who lives in an HOA-regulated neighborhood fits into that group.

Nancy, I agree that weeds don't look that bad as long as they are mowed short. That's one reason we try to mow the yard regularly---so it looks more like an intentional lawn and not like a haphazard mess of grass and everything else.

My original plan to shrink our lawn area down by planting beds of shrubs and such has taken a serious beating from deer, rabbits and everything else in the country that eats ornamental plantings, which can occasionally include stray goats and cows who've escaped from someone's pasture. After feeding the deer for years, I gave up on the landscape dream and just focus on the fenced garden now. I've had success shading out a lot of bermuda with shrubs and trees, but then that means you have to replace the bermuda with ground covers the deer and rabbits won't eat, and that's hard to do. They'll eat almost anything if they are hungry enough. We always have tons of deer and most years have tons of rabbits, so our landscape doesn't look like I want it to look since I've tried to stop growing deer chow. About the time I think I have the landscape around our house looking kinda sorta the way I want it, the deer come through and eat everything, or drought burns it all up, or flooding kills the roots. It seems more logical to confine my ornamental plantings of flowers to the fenced-in garden where wildlife can't eat them, and where the plants have a better chance of surviving both drought and flood in the garden's raised beds and well-amended clay. Sadly, there's not much that tolerates both drought and flood in dense red clay in the yard. Bermuda grass, native trees, a few well-established and well-adapted shrubs.

I could have added a lot to our landscape itself the last two years because we've had tons and tons of rain, but I didn't....because I know drought will return and I don't want to have to coddle oodles of new plants through drought only to have the wildlife sneak in and eat those coddled plants once the drought burns up everything else. Living here and dealing with our nearly constant drought and wildlife issues has taught me a lot----mostly it has taught me that I'm happiest and least frustrated when I have the plants I love growing in the fenced garden. Anything outside the garden is way too much trouble.

Dawn

Lisa- my yard really isn't that big, at least not the part that we would have sprayed. The total amount of our property is just under an acre. Everyone here pays at least $125, which is just way more than I am even willing to pay considering the people they use spray 6 times per year. Ya, no thank you. I've been looking at other turf builder and think I am going to go it on my own for now. Sometimes I think people have others do things out of convenience and I don't need my yard sprayed "conveniently" because I don't have time. I have time, so I'm gonna try to get my yard in shape myself.

I tried growing mexican hat bef

ore from seed but they didn't take. That was about 5 years ago. Here is what I am going for this year:

4 o'clocks- white

Amsonia

Balloon Flower

Bee balm

Blackberry Lily- from seed trade- this one's a learning
curve growing Lily's from seed

Blue Fescue ornamental grass

Celosia- yellow

Coleus (saved from last year)- they got 3' tall and very
bush

Columbine- blue star and McKana's Giants

Coreopsis

Cosmos

Crepe Myrtle- saved seed last year from my deep maroon bush

Dahlia

Dinnerplate hibiscus (blue with pink centers)

Feverfew

Foxglove

Hibiscus- magenta

Hollyhocks

Hosta (have seed saved)

Impatients

Lemon grass

Lisianthus- yellow

Lupine- Blue

Marigold- Janie Flame & Tiger's Eye

Morning Glory

Peony's

Petunia- Celebrity Burgandy

Phlox- pomegranate

Pink pampass grass

Rudbeckia Cappuccino

Shasta Daisy

Zinnia- Hidden Dragon

I'm sure I'll add some at some point or another. I do have some other bulbs that I am planting as well including gladiolas and elephant ear. I know I have a few other bulbs I bought recently, but I am too lazy right now to go in the garage and see what they are, lol. Been painting all day.....now I am being lazy. :)

My sisters place is gorgeous and I see why she bought that property but I could never live in the city again. Her place backs up to a pond and she has herds I'd ducks come every day to visit her and get free seeds. They nest and have babies in her yard. And she breaks many rules. I gave her the book edible landscaping to help her out. And she does a great job hiding her veggies in the landscaping.

Melissa, Mexican hat is not hard to grow so I hope you'll try it again. I have it in the front pasture and planted it there simply by cutting the grass down short after the drought of 2011 and broadcast sowing one of Wildseed Farms' wildflower mixes right on top of the ground, with no rototilling, etc. You'd be surprised how many of those wildflowers sprouted and grew. I probably scattered the seed in late winter or early spring of 2012, in an effort to bring back flowers to the pasture after everything died in the summer of 2011 before plants could mature seed. I figured that when wildflowers go to seed in nature, their seeds scatter to the wind and fall to the ground, so I just used the same method. We got tons of flowers that year and they've reseeded ever since. Keep in mind that many wildflower seeds germinate well with exposure to sunlight, so if you are starting them in flats, you often can get good results just be pressing them into the soil-less mix lightly and not really covering them with soil.

If it helps any to know this, blackberry lilies aren't even lilies, so don't let them intimidate you. They're really more closely related to irises, as you'll see when they grow because their leaves look somewhat like small versions of iris leaves. Their name comes from the fact that the seedheads look like blackberries and their flowers somewhat resemble those of some lilies. They can be slow to germinate, and often germinate erratically over a long period of time. They won't germinate as well if kept continually moist, but will perform better if they go through alternating wet and dry periods. I suspect this harkens back to wildflowers in their lineage as wildflowers often respond to wet/dry scarification in the same way. To enlarge your blackberry lily planting next year, just let the seedheads dry on the flower stalks and then cut them and scatter them where you want new plants the following year.

Kim, It might be fun to have ducks hatch out for a little while, but I bet it gets old having them feeding in the yard. I'm glad your sister is getting away with breaking a lot of the rules. I do think it is possible to mix in edibles with ornamentals and get away with it. Edible Landscaping is one of my favorite books. If I didn't have a major wildlife issue, you know that I'd have edible landscaping all around our house. I did that some in the early years, but that is part of what attracted so many deer and rabbits.

Dawn

Aw, now. She's gone and done it. Dawn mentioned Wild Seed Farms. Okeez, for all yous with spring fever let's do this.

(Hide your checkbooks and tissue your drools.)

Oh my gosh! Wow!!!

Well, it is too danged wet to weed, so now I'm spinning my wheels and thinking of all the garden chores I could be doing. Online shopping might be a nice alternative activity, and it would be garden-related if I ordered seeds, tools or equipment. I bet Wildseed Farms has something I need. Y'all do know that in addition to their wildflower and grass mixes, they also have individual species, and a few herbs and garden flowers, like zinnias and sunflowers, as well? This is one of my favorite sources for wildflower seed blends. Their poppy patch does indeed induce drooling of all who drive by while the poppies are in bloom. They also are the seed source for the magical, mystical and darn near perfect "Laura Bush" petunias, which are the only petunias I grow that laugh at the heat and just grow stronger and better, and flower prolifically, as the summer heat sets in. Not that I am trying to encourage anyone to buy anything, but if I could grow only one flower in my garden, it would be the Laura Bush petunia. They are native to South America, so our summer heat doesn't bother them.

Laura Bush Petunia

Ha, I've already been to Wildseed Farms and got my order, which included Laura Bush Petunias and a TX OK wildflower mix. That goes in the drainage ditch. I was thinking about scattering that seed today.

I refuse to go to Wild Seed Farms for fear of ordering more stuff I really don't need right now, lol. But, maybe I'll sneak a peek later.

I went to the garage to look at my bulbs since the weather is nice today and supposed to be tomorrow too. I bought gladiolas that are a deep wine red.....oh they are going to be so beautiful!! And the others I had bought were clematis and ostrich fern. I bought the ostrich fern to hide my septic covers without having something where the roots go too deep or it gets too invasive that I can't control it. I've always wanted clematis. I am not sure where I will it though. I want to plant it carefully so it will come back year after year.

I'm going to buy NO plants this year. (Right. Except lantana, echinacea, a bay tree, Arp rosemary. . . well, you all know how that goes, maybe a couple nice begonias, haha)

When I got down here to Oklahoma 3 yrs ago, we had peonies, yucca, crocus, jonquils, chrysanthemums (perennials), and some cute dwarf crepe myrtles.

Now we have 4 4x20 raised beds for veggies (thought have only so far grown tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, zucchini and butternut squash)

I am on a mission now with peppers. Having discovered (and then read) that peppers loved WARM for germinating, I'm on round 3 of planting peppers. So far had only 9 that were looking good. So I planted a dozen more various green ones (NEW seeds (California wonder), half a dozen early jalapenos, and half a dozen ornamental fish peppers.

Fun seeing all your lists, giving me ideas for ones I've forgotten--had forgotten, for example, the gorgeous hyacinth beans and black-eyed Susan vines until Dawn mentioned them.

And much to my delight, that cute little trailing verbena I loved so much up north as a summer patio pot addition, is a fun-loving spreading perennnial down here--and nearly everything is self-seeding (different from up north). Many delightful surprises! Lantana! Boy do the hummingbirds, bees and butterflies love lantana! As they do the morning glories, bee balm, cleomes, 4 o'clocks.

Day lilies and begonias look like a challenge to grow from seed; be fun to see how it goes. And I had no idea how ridiculously easy it was to grow coleus from seed, so got a mixed bag from Diane's Seeds--that should be fun.

The grow cart is getting crowded--I want everything to grow well, but to stay manageable until I can start moving them out! Tricky, eh?

(And some not so delightful ones, watching things wither up and give up the ghost in July. LOL That's okay, it's all good!)

Love herb garden (rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage, parsley, cilantro, dill, fennel and basil, so far. . .)

These flowers up to this spring:Achillea ,Asters, Astilbes, Butterfly
bush, Cannas, Clematis
(jackmanii and Diamantina), Cleomes, Coleus, Coreopsis,
moonbeam and unnamed variety, Crepe
myrtle, 4-6 foot shrub, purple; Daylilies
(3 different ones), Elephant
ears, Gaura, Heucheras, Hydrangea,
climbing
Hydrangea,
endless summer; Iris (a
pickup truck load); Lantana, Marigolds, Miniature
lilac (Miss Kim); Monarda, monkey
grass, Morning
glories, purple; Nasturtiums, Penstemon,
cardinalis; Penstemon,
husker red; Rudbeckia, Russian
sage; Shasta
Daisies, Smoke
bush, Spirea,
bridal wreath; Verbena, zinnias.

This year's are:bachelor
buttons, Begonias, black-eyed
Susan vines, Coleus, Dahlias, Daylilies, Echinacea
purpurea, Gaillardia, Gypsophila
elegans (baby's breath, red); Hollyhock
zebrina (malva sylvestris); hyacinth
beans, Mexican
sunflowers, Milkweed, Moonflower
vines, Morning
glories (heavenly blue); Nicotiana, Rudbeckia
hirta; Sweet
potato vines.

I'm sure there will be more added as the year goes on . . . . I am laughing about my 40 tomato plants that are going gangbusters. And keeping fingers crossed for onions, potatoes, lettuce and other good things to come. (Cabbages, beets, broccoli, cucumbers, zucchinis and butternut squash and yes, okra. . .)

Had to edit--my lists didn't format here as lists. . .

Nancy: Here's your incentive to avoid purchasing too many flowering plants: many of the flowering bedding plants and perennials sold in stores and nurseries have been treated with systemic insecticides like neonicotinoids that kill bees and other pollinators. That is one of the commercial gardening world's dirty little secrets. Because the neonics are systemic, they stay in the plant tissue and remain a threat to pollinators long after you bring the plants home. Imagine the uproar that occurred when people who were buying/planting in order to feed the butterflies and bees discovered they were, in fact, bringing home plants that were toxic to the very creatures for whom the gardener was planting them. Even butterfly weed plants that were purchased were found to contain neonics. I've almost entirely stopped buying purchased plants at nurseries and other retail outlets for this very reason. How's that for an incentive to grow your own as much as possible, or at least to seek out and buy only plants that have been grown organically (not easy to find, and often expensive)? Some nurseries and big box chains say they are committed to getting bedding plants treated with neonics out of their stores by a certain date (it varies by store). I'll believe it when I see it.

Neonic Pesticides In Purchased Plants

Coleus from seed is ridiculously easy, so no worries there. Really, most flowers are easy from seed. It is just that the nursery industry has gotten too many people convinced that it is preferable to go buy big flats of plants and create an instant garden in one afternoon. That wouldn't be such a bad idea for someone who is short on time if the plants weren't loaded with systemic insecticides.

When I see a flowering plant that I think I must have, I always ask myself if it is worth it to me to bring home a plant that might have been treated with neonics. Generally, it is not.

Dawn

Aha! Thank you, Dawn! If everything I have planted and am planning to plant grows, I will have no problem staying away from the plants sold by others. I did order the Arp rosemary plants, lantana and blueberry bushes from Baker Seeds (if I'm remembering correctly; would have to check my email receipts) for delivery at appropriate times. I just got delightful seeds from Summer Hill Seeds (begonias, phlox, the fish pepper, moon flowers)--I was so tickled with their explicit planting instructions. Have any of you ordered from them? (I never had, previously.)

And yes, the coleus--ridiculously easy!

Funny little clematis. . . got this Diamantina clematis from Sooner Plant Farm 3 years ago. (Now having learned, I'll be checking nurseries' policies on their uses of pesticides. . .). I'm sure some of you know of Sooner--it's a beautiful nursery in beautiful country. Would appreciate any feedback you may have in case I want to go see them in the future. I digress.

The first year the clematis grew beautifully and produced many blooms; second year, it was one of the fist plants up, and again, beautiful blooms. However, it developed wilt, and I axed it back to the ground. Wondered if it was toast, but no, I see it up and going this year. The funny thing is, it moved 2 feet away from where I'd planted it. I got a laugh out of that, and in fact had a hard time at first figuring out what it was. I'll have to give it some special treatment this year. Last year I had morning glories climbing all around it, and had it right next to our deck. Where it is now is probably a better space for it, as it will get plenty of free circulating air; I'll give added amendments to the soil surrounding it and get a cage or trellis for it.

I'm going to try to rip out the current morning glories as the jump up by the hundreds, as I've decided I want to see through the deck railing this year instead of enjoying the wall of morning glories. Besides, decided in spots, I'd rather have the heavenly blue morning glories mixed with the hyacinth beans--so will let them have maybe 6 feet of deck. I know, wish me luck on keeping the morning glories at bay. Perhaps if I can keep them away from the clematis, and keep any other weeds and debris away, it will do better. If it won't, bye bye.

I have ordered from Summer Hill before. Their seeds generally do really well for me. I do like their explicit seed sowing directions. If a seed needs cold stratification, for example, the seed packet will tell you the exact temperature and for how long. You can't beat directions like that.