Did you plant some patience in your garden?
If you chose to start some of your own plants from seeds, I hope you planted some patience, too, because those seedlings grow best when you also plant some patience around them.
And don’t plant comparison anywhere near your little seedlings that you started from seeds. Comparison will make your seedlings look small and make you think maybe you should have just bought the plants already blooming so you could have instant color.
After all, this is the 21st century. We have instant everything these days!
So why start your own plants from seeds? Why not just buy some already blooming annuals and plant them?
Oh, the reasons… the many reasons to garden this way.
- You can get exactly the varieties and colors you want. I wanted to have yellow zinnias growing around the mailbox but I knew the garden centers would all have just mixed colors of potted zinnias for sale and no one would have Zinnia angustifolia for sale. So I bought seeds for the two zinnias I wanted—Zahara Yellow and Zinnia angustifolia Crystal Series – Yellow.
- You can get more plants for your money. For example, I paid $3.69 plus tax for 10 Zahara yellow zinnia seeds. All 10 germinated giving me 10 plants for a not-including-soil-and-compostable-container price of 37 cents each. Even adding in soil and container costs, I’m still well under a dollar per plant. (No, I didn’t count the cost of grow lights because I already had them.)
- You get a greater sense of achievement when that little seed you held in your hand becomes a little seedling, and then a small plant, and finally, a blooming wonder!
- You gain confidence as a gardener when you successfully grow plants from seeds. With that confidence, you can try growing all kinds of plant and flower varieties that you don’t usually find at a garden center, greenhouse, or big box store.
Of course, I also buy many seedlings and annuals in the spring, especially violas and pansies. I don’t have THAT much patience or room to grow every plant I want in my garden from seeds.
But when I want something specific or special, like yellow zinnias and Zinnia angustifolia, sometimes seeds are the only way to grow.
And as long as you plant them with patience and leave out comparison, they’ll do great!
There is nothing like the reward of starting seeds and seeing them mature into the lovely picture on the packet! This year that is not happening for some of my seed babies as the bunnies have found my garden and set up housekeeping. #enoughsaid Happy gardening Carol!