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THE BLUEPRINT OF POTENTIAL

“A seed contains everything it needs to begin life as a little plant.”

By LADYBUG

My friend Linda used to come over with a tray of tomato plants, lovingly raised from seed.

She’d start in very early spring - when it still felt more like the  depths of winter – and always, but always, have more than she could accommodate in her garden. And thus her friends were the beneficiaries of varieties of tomatoes, everything from roma and beefsteak to cherry and my personal favourites, heirloom varieties, seeds of which she’d inherited from her mother and aunts.

She also shared seedlings of other plants. Rose of Sharon, phlox, coreopsis, etc.

Inspired by her, I attempted the same, but with little to no success.

Packet after packet of plants I longed for in my garden – sweet peas, zinnias, cosmos, sunflowers... – all yielded a few spindly seedlings.

I should clarify here that there was nothing wrong with the packets – Linda had great success with the same! It was a It’s-me-not-the-packet issue.

I’d start off as instructed, place the seeds carefully in starter kits, water and make sure they got enough sunlight, hover over them lovingly. Okay, anxiously. And they’d sprout. And grow a tad, and I’d have visions of fields of flowers. But then they’d get all tall and lanky and keel over. I can root cuttings from oleanders and roses and ajawain, to name a few, but my success rate with seeds remains abysmal.

So Seeds, with the promise of growing one’s own cut flowers from scratch was meant for people like me.

Milli Proust starts us off with this quote: “A seed contains everything it needs to begin life as a little plant.”

Seeds contain the blueprint of potential, she writes, and then gets down to a show-and-tell. Soil essentials, seed essentials, seed tool kit, sowing guides and seedlings, you’ll find them all.

With helpful tips on where to grow seeds, on how to make paths between beds, raised beds and containers, etc. I couldn’t help but smile at the page which details how to understand seed packets. For I’ve lost count of the times I didn’t pay enough attention to the information detailing optimum growing conditions.

Proust goes on to list plants by category.

Half-hardy annuals, which include snapdragons and sweetpea.

Tender annuals such as marigold and zinnia.

Hardy annuals like cornflower, larkspur, and nigella. I am delighted to note this, as all of these perform like perennials in my zone, returning year after year faithfully. Larkspur, though, can be short-lived, and I have replaced/added many over the years.

Biennials she lists include dianthus and hollyhock.

Aquilegia or columbines make it to the short-lived perennials list. So sometimes, I am not entirely to blame, I say, as I think of all the columbines that did so well for a few years and then suddenly, were a no-show.

Seeds by Milli Proust is published by Hardie Grant Quadrille, USD 20.99.

There’s a long list of herbaceous perennials. Among them, achillea (or yarrow), asters,  astilbe, campanula, coreopsis, delphinium, monarda, peony, primula, salvia, sedum and veronica.

There are beautiful images of some of her favourite plants grown from seeds – amaranthus (I love that she includes this, as it rarely gets the spotlight it deserves), cosmos, poppy, calendula, nigella.

But why are we talking about seeds this time of year? Isn’t the time to start seeds some months away?

Of course it is, but now is when you collect them!

Read the section on collecting and storing seeds and go out and harvest next year’s magical blooms!