Where They Are Planted

I always have an assortment of herbs and flowers growing in the eight hanging baskets that sway gently on their hooks in the breeze out on our balcony. I have a few pots on the decking as well, mostly herbs, but sometimes lettuce or beans or sunflowers grow out there, too. This summer I added marigolds, portulaca, and snapdragons, the same flowers my mother grew every year in our garden when we were kids.

In dry weather, the baskets and pots require daily watering, and even with the rain we've had the last few days, I've been out there pruning and weeding and dead-heading. It's more of a joy than a chore, though.

It was my mom that showed us the magic trick of finding the seeds in the flowers, and ever since I was a little girl, I have relished snapping the dry blossoms from the marigold plants and plucking them apart from their base to reveal the half-inch seeds. Likewise, I love the tiny pods on both portulaca and snapdragons that burst with a satisfying crunch to release a thimbleful of teeny seeds into the palm of my hand.

It always seems a shame to waste such potential, and so more often than not, I open my hand and cast the seeds into the wind, wishing them luck where ever they may land, and wondering a little bit why the world is not more full of flowers.