It's summertime and everyone is busy haunting the local home and garden shops, bringing the landscape alive with any variety of beautiful colors and dazzling displays. Many of us are still prisoners of our homes, starting to feel like the house itself has become a living, breathing thing, with walls heaving and trying to suffocate us while we sit inside. Life at home has become more of a battle and less of a place of comfort. Surely there has to be some way to escape or bring some happiness in. It's at times like this that you have to dig down deep and get creative. Flowers are an amazingly effective way to uplift your mood on a dreary day, so I decided to brighten up mine with some color and diversity.
I have a large collection of assorted seeds, the result of being unable to resist those little beauties when I go to the store. The vibrant colors, the mixture of blues and greens, reds and yellows, just imagining the creativity behind watching them grow makes me want to bring home every single one. In searching for something both easy and unique, I settled on something that is both. Dwarf Sunflowers bring the world alive with fire and beauty and are short enough that I can see them without standing on a chair. Nothing depresses me more than having to stand back from afar while I watch some flower look down on me.
The formal name for these flowers is Helianthus annuus, but I'm going to go with sunflower. These blazing beauties are short, and a wonderful variety of colors besides yellow. Fiery red, crimson, orange, white, they cover it all. This particular package has around 1000 seeds, which is more than enough to fill up both my yard and my neighbor's. I don't want my own sunflower farm, so I'm going to start with just one or two, enough to make my pot look pretty until I find a permanent place for it.
As a bonus, apparently I am going to be growing some Swiss Chard. I have no idea what Swiss Chard is, but I have to grow it because somehow the package got soaked and those little critters are crawling right out. I hate to see a seed go to waste, so I'm going to be planting these as well. You always need to learn new things, so I'll learn about Swiss Chard as well.
You simply cannot have a plant without a proper pot, so I went down to my local Dollar Tree store, which had a wonderful variety. I bought a beautiful greenish-blue pot for my sunflowers and a pretty red pot for my Swiss Chard. New flowers and flower pots get me excited, so I had to resist the overwhelming urge to buy every pot in the store. Despite my best efforts, somehow a whole bunch of those little beauties flung themselves right into my cart and I was forced to bring them home as well. I guess I'm in for a summer-long planting party! Next, it's off to the local garden store where I picked up a large bag of dirt, or should I say, potting soil. Unlike other gardeners, I do not have a green thumb, so I got the good stuff.
In getting started, I thought it might be a good idea to read the instructions. According to the back of the sunflower seeds. I should sow the seeds at 1/2 inch. It's not recommended I start them in pots but I'm going to because my yard is being dug up for a sprinkler system. I filled the pot with dirt, or planting soil, put a few seeds in it at about 1/2 inch depth, and now I can sit back and wait in excited anticipation for those little buggers to grow.
The package says my sunflower will start growing in about 7-10 days so I'm going to keep it inside under a sunlamp for just a few days. After the rains stop the temperature is supposed to go back up to brain baking dry, so then I can put it outside where it can soak up the sun. In the meantime, I'm going to get started on the Swiss Chard and see how to grow it and find out if it's going to take over my garden. Come back to see how the sunflowers are doing, and learn more about Swiss Chard.
Hope to see you soon.
