Yard Crashers Cleanup

Summer is about half over, which means the wildflowers in my stump flower pot have dried up and died. However, that didn't mean my work for the year was over. There was one more step to take. Pictured are the flower stems that remained when I went outside this afternoon. I almost cut them off a few weeks back, but instead I left them up to dry out a little longer.

Most of the flowers in the stump were lined with these sort of purple and pink flowers. The flower bed on the side of the house, which still has a lot of wildflowers blooming, had a much better variety for some reason.

Anyway, each one of those pods had a couple dozen seeds in them. Very tiny seeds.

Multiply that by several hundred pods and you have a big pile of wildflower seeds for next spring. Now, the package of seeds we bought this spring (about 20,000 seeds for only $4.50) said to mow down the stalks to 2-3 feet tall so they could spread their seeds for the next year, but I felt like most of my seeds would have ended up in the grass since my flower pot is so small. So, I decided to harvest my seeds (even though we had several thousand leftover). Now, I have several thousand more seeds to plant.

Gretchen called it a waste of two hours, I called it a frugal way to spend the afternoon. We have bought some of the flowers for the house, but I take the most pride in all the landscaping items we haven't bought: the transplanted rose bush, maple tree, tulips and daffodils; the adopted lilies and mums; and the recycled landscaping timber. I didn't do much but spread the wildflower seeds this spring (and actually Gretchen did that). But next year, I can say I had a much bigger part in their upbringing. The best part? There are thousands of more seeds waiting to be harvested in the near future.