What a difference a day makes

Yesterday, I'm writing about snow. Today, I'm ordering 5,700 larkspur seeds. (That's half an ounce in case you're wondering.)

Who can understand the mind of a gardener?

Well, now that I actually stop to think about it, maybe those two things are related. Before the snow, all I could see was a past-its-prime garden in need of some serious cleanup. After the snow, I looked out the same window onto the same scene and I saw a clean, blank -- albeit, white -- slate. (Just waiting to be filled with larkspur apparently.)

I've been possessed by these annual delphiniums ever since I visited Ann Tice's Champaign garden. (You can get a glimpse of what I'm talking about in this photo and a more in-depth look in our Photo Galleries on this website. Just click on the O&E Contributors' Gardens Album.)



Ann was gracious enough to send me some of her larkspur seeds last fall. I scattered them about -- per her instructions -- and waited expectantly for tiny seedlings to appear. Unfortunately, shortly after that sowing, we experienced a torrential downpour that must have washed those seeds at least two counties away. (If you wind up with orphaned larkspur in your yard next spring, you'll know who to thank.)

I'm hoping 5,700 will be enough to account for any losses should a similar situation occur in the spring. And if there is no downpour, well, so much the better -- because no gardener can ever really have too much a good thing