I tried to grow delphiniums from seed last year and started them in the house, it was an unmitigated disaster, the goofy things came up, put out their first pair of true leaves then just up and died. I had a packet of columbine seeds as well, but figured it was hopeless as they must be as finicky as the delphiniums, but I had them so I had to do something with them. I scattered the contents haphazardly in a couple large pots, but besides for watering them occasionally, I didn't pay them any particular attention. The silly things sprouted and thrived! With a shrug, I transplanted them, figuring they wouldn't survive the process, but they did and they even made it through the summer. Then this spring, they all came up when many of my shrubs and other plants were killed or severely damaged by our bipolar freeze/thaw winter. Then came the deer, they ate most of the flower stalks, but they missed a pair which is now blooming.
It is hard to imagine such a delicate, beautiful flower came from a tiny little seed, that it could somehow grow from nothing into a splendid plant all on its own, that the necessary programming was there from the first. With all of our technology and scientific advancement, we humans still can't come up with anything so intricately wonderful, yet we continue to insist it came about by accident or cosmic chance, yet columbine is just one of thousands of species of flowers, and that says nothing of the other plants, bacteria, fungi, insects, mammals, fish…that fill our world. I find nothing more intriguing than watching a seed become a plant and then producing more seeds, it fascinated me as a child and still does, perhaps that is why it is said only a child may possess the Kingdom of God; it seems a very sad thing to grow up and lose all ability to find any enchantment in the world.
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