Yeah, I am about 2 (3?) months late. :)

However, flowers are pricier this year, and I haven’t been able to get to the retailers to pick up what I’d like, anyway.

I’ve always wanted to grow plants from seeds, but had limited success over the years. And yet greenhouses do it every day! ;) So this must be an achievable thing. Practice makes perfect, right?

So I will have pots full of late-blooming plants this year. I’m going to plant my seed-started plants separately so I can bring them inside this fall and enjoy their full life cycle after the world turns to brown-and-gray, rather than losing them “early” in October.

The seeds I planted today included:

    Giant Violet Zinnias
    Thunbergia (black-eyed susan vine)
    Balsam (not the tree!)
    Profusion zinnias
    Mixed sunflowers
    Four o’clocks
    Sweet Basil
    ……. and, Italian Oregano

I also have a couple packets of nasturtiums that I’m going to plant up at my Mom’s house… as well as some multi-colored Columbines for her yard, too. :) We love fragrant butterfly- and bird-friendly flowers. And unlike my deck, she doesn’t have bird predators (cats) to eat our little feathery friends.

With the exception of the Four O’Clocks, which as I understand are quite fragrant (and might end up up at Mom’s as a result if they attract too many moths and flutterbies), I have tried to pick flowers this year which are not attractive to hummingbirds particularly. One of my cats is quite adept at catching the little things, and she likes to bring them in the house and eat them on my bed.

YUCK!!!

Let me tell you, there is nothing quite as nauseating as discovering a little bird leg and 50 teeny-tiny feathers in a little pile on your bedspread.

Hopefully through better flower choices this year, I’ll attract fewer hummers (because it is very upsetting to me to know they are getting murdered on my porch) and then all the cat will have to dine on is cicada bugs. Yes, cicadas. In my bed. Headless.

*barf*

Filed under: Birds • Flowers • Reflections

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