How does my garden grow?
Way back in early spring, I was perusing an online ad for flower seeds, and on a whim, I ordered three packets of sunflower seeds in dazzling colors as they were shown: Red Wave, Italian White, and Bright Blue. I also ordered a packet of Sunflower Miniatures, traditional in appearance but only about a foot tall, that I wanted to plant around what used to be a windmill. The seeds were promised for early April arrival, and the seed company held true to their word as I received them April 8. But as I removed them from the package, I was totally flummoxed! In my package were four small plastic bags of seeds — no labels, no identification whatsoever, no way to know what was what. Now if I had planned to just scatter them in a flower bed, it wouldn’t have mattered. But I had a particular plan that I could picture clearly in my mind, and I just couldn’t understand why a reputable flower seed company would send out seeds without any type of labeling at all. Scratch that word “reputable!” I went back to the impressive confirmation email the company had sent, with little thumbnail photos of the flowers I had ordered, and at the bottom of the email I found the following message: “If you have any questions, reply to this email or contact us at info@GardenerStar.com.” So that’s what I did! I replied to the email and explained that I ordered certain colors because of a plan of how I wanted to plant these seeds, and I couldn’t proceed with that plan if I didn’t know which seeds would produce what flowers. I further commented that it didn’t make sense to sell flower seeds unmarked and that I probably would not be ordering from them in the future. A few days later I had a reply that, if I would take a photo of the seed packets, someone there could possibly identify them. So that’s what I did. I laid the four little packets of sunflower seeds on a white sheet of paper and took a picture, then sent that photo to them; and in just a couple of days, someone from the seed company replied by handwriting on my sheet of photos the names and identification of each seed packet.
By this time, we were nearing the end of the window for planting seeds, but I went ahead and carried out my plan, based on the seed company’s identification. I planted a row of red, a row of white, another row of red, then white, then one more red, followed by white. At the far left side of my flower bed I scattered the blue seeds in about an eight-inch wide area. I watered and tended to the little patriotic display in my head. My plants were all about a foot tall when the hailstorm hit, and I was afraid they were goners. But I kept watering and, even though several of the stems were broken by hail and some of the leaves were ripped, those patriotic little soldiers kept growing!
Within the past ten days or so, an abundance of buds have swelled up and loosen, and a half dozen or more flowers have opened. I am anxiously awaiting the next few days, but so far, the BEST display of these beauties is (still!) the one in my head. Don’t get me wrong: the flowers that have opened and are in full bloom are beautiful — but they are bright yellow, traditional, Kansas sunflowers! I’m sure glad I went to all that effort of begging for identification and then meticulously planting those seeds carefully in rows! There are many buds still to open, so perhaps it will get better over the next few days; but I’m not holding my breath. I’ll be sure to send a photograph of my “patriotic sunflower patch” to the seed company with my appreciation. =(:-(
Oh, and those Sunflower Miniatures? Not a single one of them ever broke ground.
At this point, I don’t expect to be ordering from GardenerStar again.
