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Fun with Foliage
The Joys of Springtime Planting
By Penny Powell
Marigolds, a difficult-to-kill and easy-to-maintain plant, take Royce back to her earlier days as a mother. Her now-grown daughter would plant marigolds as a child in a cup of dirt as a Mother's Day gift. If planted in late March or early April, progress with this plant could be seen by the time Mother's Day arrives.
Grow marigolds in sun or partial sun. Planting location options include a cup of dirt, potted garden or outside in beds. "Just pick off spent flowers during the summer to encourage more blooms," Royce says.
Sugar snap peas also make Royce's top picks. Yes, it is a vegetable, "but it has pretty little flowers," Royce says. Another beautiful thing about this plant is that after growing it you might just have a vegetable eater on your hands. "The pea pods are good even eaten raw," Royce says. "Even a finicky eater might be tempted to eat this vegetable if they had a hand in growing it." Sugar snap peas, a great seed to be handled by little hands, could even be planted in a pot. Be sure it gets large doses of sun, give it some sticks for support and watch it climb.
Ever thought about growing a "talking" plant with your child? Plant some snapdragons! "If you carefully pinch the flower together at the sides, the flower opens up, and it lookslike it's talking to you," Royce says. She has fond memories of playing with these as a child and shared the experience with her own children. Prior to making these flowers "talk," Royce cautions parents to first check for bees that sometimes hang out inside of snapdragons.