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5 Flowers Everyone Can Grow
And Finding Wisdom in your Garden
It’s one of my favorite times of the year. When the Burpee seed catalog arrives in the mailbox, it’s a harbinger of spring (even though winter just started two weeks previously!) In the following weeks come a plethora of catalogs until you just can’t absorb any more. This year’s stack is already nearly 4 inches high.
The first real job I ever had was during high school at a vast retail nursery in Ventura, California. I was assigned to bedding plants, and my textbook was Sunset’s “Western Garden Book,” which I clung to dearly until I felt I could go it on my own. Most of what I learned I didn’t apply until years later, when I first owned a home in Skokie, Illinois. However, the growing conditions were quite a bit harsher than they were in Ventura!
Today, the flowers that I will recommend are some of my favorites that flourish in two very extreme climate zones, those being northern Illinois and the desert of central New Mexico. It only stands to reason that all can be grown in every climate zone between (many more, actually). But first, here’s the story of how I got to my five picks.
