Texas Bluebonnets - the state wildflower - are possibly the most famed and loved wildflower of Central Texas. People have scheduled spring visits and photo shoots here just to see the rolling hills blanketed with the vibrant blues of this local lupine. During the 1980s, there were not a lot of bluebonnets in our neighborhood. Being wildflowers, they are easy to sow in the fall, and so I bought packages of seeds to produce the blooms that so brighten the landscape. My success rate was quite low, however, with only a handful of the plants showing up in the spring.

Some years later, I discovered stretches of bluebonnets alongside the road in other parts of the neighborhood. Because these already seemed very happy in our limestone locale, after they went to seed, I gathered a few of the pods and scattered the contents in front of where we lived. These were highly successful the next year - we had a great patch of blue along our bit of road. Those bluebonnets in turn produced pods of seeds, and I gathered a few additional pods from elsewhere along the road. The next spring was even lovelier.

I suspect one secret is that something already cheerily growing in your area is more likely to be a survivor than the seeds from plants that were successful in different environmental conditions. The other is not to mow down favorite wildflowers before they've produced their seeds.