I Know, I Know. But they are just so fabulous.

Nasturtiums fill my garden this time of year. I planted the first seeds several years ago and they just keep reseeding and hybridizing themselves each year. Most revert back to the basic orange and yellow according to Jorge. But in a thorough inspection today, I found some wonderful variants. The top left is a peach colored variety I planted late last fall. All the others are just offspring of seed planted long ago.







The rusty burgundy colored on the right was tucked in with some solid bright orange.












This lemony yellow nasturtium was growing amidst the succulent and cactus patch. The dark markings are nearly black.









The petals on this variegated flower are smaller than some of the other flowers, giving them a more exploded feel. Also there is no throat on this flower. Maybe it's sterile?








This one was tucked amongst some bright orange blossoms that blanket the rapheolepsis in the front of the house. There are hints of some shimmery purple on this flower in the darkened areas on the lower three petals. Gorgeous!






Once planted the seeds seem to go everywhere...in pots, under every shrub, in every flower bed. Nature creates a supersufficiency. Come spring the riot of orange, yellow, red and green billow out of every imaginable space, blanket the shrubbery and fill in the gaps in the ground covers until the summer perennials take over.







And, they are edible!

For more info, see my previous post:
Plant Nasturtiums for Chaos and Color

Plant Nasturtiums for chaos and color

Buy a couple of packets of Nasturtium (Tropaeolum) seeds. Get a variety. Push them into the soil anywhere. They love sun, but will grow in some shade and reseed prolifically. In a few years, you will have nasturtiums everywhere, in your lawn, in all the flower beds. You'll want to weed them but don't. The riot of color will lift your spirits particularly after a sad day of reading election results. (Orange is, after all, the prefered color of revolutionaries.) Add some flowers, leaves or unripe seeds to your salad. They're peppery and pretty. The bees will cross pollinate so you'll have a huge variety of colors after a few generations. Heinz 57 Nasturtiums! Save some of the seeds and give them to your friends. (A little cross-pollination among friends will aid the bees.) Let them spill over your walkways and climb on your fence. When they get leggy and long in the tooth, pull them up and put them in the green waste bin or your compost heap. (Don't you wish it were this easy to get rid of politicians?) Fear not! You will have another crop before you know it. They'll spring up everywhere, even in the composter.