24aug04Love in a Mist, Plant starts

24aug04 Love in a Mist, New biennial seeds.

I found and opened an older pod of Love in a Mist. The seeds were green, not yellow and orange, and they were large. I wonder if they are viable yet. I have to keep Love in a Mist deadheaded to get blooms, but have two seed pods allowed to get brown that I haven't opened yet.
Middle of July I planted some perennials and biennials. New England Aster and Hyssop and a lovely Sweet William, thinking they would get full size by fall. It is almost fall. They are too small to put in the open garden. The panic I felt at what to do with them was all in my head and over.
I have considered the concept of massing them or using them as edge plants. For the winter I will keep them in flats, assuming they don’t get too big, in protected nursery areas. Come spring, I can do new edging and masses.
Planting masses of plants is new to me and comes with starting seed. Nursery buying limits a gardener. It limited me to one or two plants because of the cost.
Starting biennials in July is not a totally new concept to me. Mother gave me Fever Few (from the Mum family, I assume) on an old, brown flower head in July, told me to scatter them where I wanted cute little white flowers all summer the next year. They started out small the first fall. The next year, they would bloom in early summer. This year, the light bulb went off when I was deadheading. If I deadhead them, they will not go to seed, but start their patient, persistent, flower to seed process all over again and I could have white flowers into the fall, because these are cold hardy, like Mums. I love plants. They just keep up their share of necessary hormones and make seed, no depression or shrunken hypocampus for them. The gardener is privileged to steward the process, God willing. Gotta go.