I used to visit Ms. Sellers' greenhouse every spring to get annual flowers for that 'instant' garden and color. She knew exactly what would grow here in these mountains, and every year she would remind me, 'don't plant anything before May 1st'. So every year I wait.
A few weeks ago when the days were sunny and 80 degrees and we had the windows open at night, I was asked if it was time to plant flowers yet. No, not yet. Then two mornings ago when it was 40 degrees and we had the heat on, I just smiled and remembered Ms. Sellers' advice.
Now on this last day of April, it is almost time. The flowers have been trucked in to the local garden stores - Home Depot, Lowes, Wal-Mart... but they are not the same as the ones Ms. Sellers grew.
She told me her favorite winter pastime was looking at all the seed catalogs that came in the mail, then she would plant the seeds in her greenhouse in the early spring and nurture the little plants along until novice gardeners like me would come by so she could teach us the names and which ones would grow in the shade and which colors went together and of course, 'don't plant before May 1st'!
My next project will be the deck flower boxes, but for now, whatever is blooming in the woods is just as beautiful, maybe Ms. Sellers learned about gardening from Mother Nature.
"One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in." ~ Henry David Thoreau
