A great way to get free flower seeds for next year is to pick seeds from your own flowers in the fall. After the flower blooms and dies back the seeds will form in the middle of the flower. When the seed pod is dried out but before it drops the seeds on the ground you should cut the stem of the flower and shake the seeds into a bag or on a newspaper. If they don’t come off easily you can rub the pods between your hands to get them to open up.

After gathering up the flower seeds you will need to let them dry out in the sun for a week or so. The best way to do this is to lay them out on newspaper in a sunny south facing window. You could do it outside but the seeds usually blow away outside. When you are sure the seeds are dry you can package them in a 2×3 inch zip lock bag. They are available at just about any craft store.

Try and get all the chaff and insects so you just have pure seeds. Make sure to label you bags and keep them out of the sun in a dry location until Spring. The flower seeds will keep until the next year or two so there is no hurry to use them up.

When spring comes you can get out your FREE seeds and decide where you want to plant them. It is a good idea to put them in the same conditions they grew so well in last year. If they were in the sun last year and did well don’t go sticking them in the shade this year. After a few years of doing this you will have a large amount of flower seeds on  hand every spring. You will only have to buy seeds when you see some new ones you don’t already have. Good Luck and Keep Gardening.

My wife and I just can’t get enough of our flower garden, it brings so much joy just looking at them. Sometimes I find myself just staring out my office window into the backyard as it can be quite beautiful.

But, it really got interesting when our plants’ flower blossoms started attracting butterflies. I even bought a new digital camera so I could catch all the beauty to share on my gardening blogs.

Of course, it helps if you can actually see the flowers in your garden! Usually, that means putting the tall flowers at the back and the shorter plants at the front. But does that rule always hold true?

We offer a couple of suggestions that break the rules.

One of those tips involves planting flowers around rocks but you could also use stepping stones. Our stepping stone molds will give your garden a truly unique look… and give your flowers a background to help them stand out. Read it all here…

How To Turn Your Flower Garden Into A Butterfly Heaven

We like to think that our flower seeds will give your garden all the beauty it needs. With a little attention, they can do even more than that. The flowers can also attract butterflies, bringing additional color to your outdoor areas.

Our zinnias, for example, create nectar that’s a treat for the Silver Checkerspot, a yellow-orange butterfly found in most eastern and central states between May and September. Our purple coneflowers are popular with Common Wood-Nymphs and Monarch, and shasta daisies provide a meal for the Mourning Cloak, a beautiful purple-black butterfly that appears across almost the entire country.

You shouldn’t really need to do anything special to turn your flower garden into a butterfly paradise but a little planning can increase the numbers of butterflies that you attract — and the amount that you enjoy them.

Planting particular types of flowers in large groups, for example, will make them easier for butterflies to spot and give you fluttering clusters instead of migrating individuals that come in ones and twos. Creating areas of light and shade will let the butterflies both warm themselves in the sun and provide cool spots out of the heat. And puddles of water and rotting fruit can also give your butterflies a reason to stick around… provided you don’t mind the smell.

You can also try matching the plant favored by the larvae with the flower preferred by the butterfly. Place sunflowers near zinnias, for example, and you’ll create a nursery for the Silvery Checkerspots, guaranteeing a supply when the caterpillars pupate between May and September.

And finally, you can also plan your garden so that you have a spot to sit in the summer shade while the butterflies enjoy the flowers that surround you — and you enjoy both.

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