Two years ago (or more, I can't remember), I planted seeds for Euphorbia
marginata (snow on the mountain) under an apricot tree, with the idea that
the leaves would light up an area of my garden in which root competition
made it difficult to work the soil.. Not a single one sprouted, and I have
just tromped around the understory of the tree since then, weeding and
picking apricots - paying minimal attention to the bits of greenery here
and there under the tree. Today while watering by hand, I was concentrating
on the struggling rhubarb behind the tree, when all of a sudden my eye
caught a flash of brilliant variegation on some foliage under the tree - and
there was a full-grown euphorbia in all its glory. It reinforced the notion
I have always had, that seeds have a timing all their own - and self-sown
seedlings have a way of picking the perfect environment for themselves -
which ensures that I have alyssum every year in certain areas, calendula in
others, and cosmos elsewhere..

"gregpresley" wrote in message It reinforced the notion
....I have always had, that seeds have a timing all their own - and self-sown
seedlings have a way of picking the perfect environment for themselves -
which ensures that I have alyssum every year in certain areas, calendula in
others, and cosmos elsewhere..

i agree... have things coming up randomly and many of them I can't
remember ever having planted, some of them i planted summer before
last and can't remember what they are as by now the ID labels have
vanished. My daughter who lived 2 nd a half blocks away and I both had
a bunch of plants with huge flat leaves at the base the large stalks
coming up like a minosa candlabra with smaller leaves and then small
mallow like blooms going up the stalks progressively, some as tall as
5 feet! Must have been a bunch of blackbirds with diarrhea planting
them!
leo/lee