Grow Abundant Garden BALSAM
LIKE MOST GARDENING HOUSEHOLDS, mine occasionally gets taken in by a seed mix’s promise of paradise. Most of the time, the yield is disappointing: a few unhappy plants instead of the blanket of blooms and lush foliage pictured on the packet. And we swear we’ll never fall for the hype again.
Despite this checkered past, my husband sowed a shade mix last summer in a partly sunny bed with average soil. A few weeks later, we had a thick stand of … something. As the days passed, the seedlings’ stems lengthened and turned red, and sawtooth-edged leaves unfolded. We nearly pulled up the unfamiliar plants, but decided to wait because they didn’t look like any weeds we knew.
After a couple of months, these odd plants burst into a vivid display of fuchsia, violet,. Its common names include “garden balsam,” “lady’s slipper” (a different plant from lady’s slipper orchids), and “touch-me-not.” Our little plot of balsam put on an impressive show for weeks, until the stalks loaded up with seedpods and the plants stopped blooming.
