Sowing the seeds of love
Happy March everyone! It’s almost spring and the days are getting a little bit longer and a little bit lighter. Hooray!
March is quite a positive month, I think. Day light saving time is applied and it also marks the first day of spring. A lot of us will be starting to think about sowing some seeds and for me this is a sign of new beginnings and growth.
Along with with the first day of spring, it also happens to be Mother’s Day on the 14th, so maybe you’re looking for an interesting gift or card for the mother figure in your life? Why not pop over to my gift shop for some unique Mother’s Day gift ideas?
I don’t know about you but I’m always happy when I get seeds or plants for Mother’s Day. I can’t resist buying them for myself, but it’s always a nice surprise to get something extra from one of my children. There’s so much excitement in those beautiful little packets of seeds, full of anticipation.
Choosing what to sow takes me ages but by selecting only pollinator-friendly plants, it helps narrow it down a little. I recently attended a free event on Eventbrite about planting for pollinators with the Cambridge Bee Association and Sarah Holdsworth from Bee Happy Plants. If you are looking for information on planting for pollinators, I can recommend that you check them out, too.
Even though planting out is a struggle in my tiny, already full garden I do not let it deter me from planting big and one such plant in this year’s selection is this magnificent red-wine coloured sunflower, called ‘Sunflower Black Magic’.
Why not save the seed heads and feed them to the birds?
Now’s the time to sow your seeds if you’d like to have some of these in your garden this year! This stunning plant will grow to 1.2m and I, like the bees and other insects it attracts, adore its velvety, rich maroon petals. Plus, when finished flowering the seed heads feed the Green finches and Gold finches, that’s if they get there before the squirrels!
There’s so much going for this plant. It looks great in a vase and I love it so much that it even features in a few of my collages and cushions. One of the collages, part of my ‘Floral Visitors’ series, can be found in my shop. The cushion pictured is only £40, a complete bargain for a designer cushion, but there aren’t any for sale on my shop, however there are some in my Contrado store, so please take a look if you’re interested in my cushions and homewares.
Like many of us garden and nature obsessed types, I’d love to have my own piece of land where I could grow every kind of pollinator and wildlife friendly plant, and where I could snip away ‘Sarah Raven style’ flowers to arrange indoors and to give to friends, but for now I consider myself very lucky to have my own little green space.
And with that little rêverie, I’ll bid you all a wonderful weekend. And, if you’re a mum, make sure you put get to put your feet up or at least start sowing those seeds of love!
Love, Jill.
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