It seems like there’s never enough time to spend in the garden. Between work, errands, kids and all those extra activities that tend to come up, it’s a wonder we find time to plant anything at all!
Lovely clusters of flowers sprout from each little ball.
Photo Credit: SeedBallz
SeedBallz is helping grow four gardens of sunflowers in an effort to make New Orleans a cleaner, healthier city.
Photo Credit: SeedBallz
You can grow a beautiful and easy wildflower screen with SeedBallz!
Photo Credit: SeedBallz
Personally, when it comes to gardening, I’m a big believer in streamlining things – as long as I don’t have to sacrifice beauty or taste. And that’s part of what makes SeedBallz® so intriguing to me. Each nickel-sized ball of clay is loaded with about 40 seeds, in addition to some fertilizing organic matter. They actually look a bit like a chocolate truffle – and what grows out of them is a delicious treat for the eyes!
To “plant” these balls of seed, all you have to do is insert them partway into the soil in a sunny spot – be it a container, window box, garden border or flower bed – and give them plenty of water. (Its parent company, GardenBasket, recommends about three balls per square foot of planting space, as well as planting them in a zigzag pattern for a more natural look.)
If given the proper requirements – full sun and water – the seeds in each ball (equivalent to a typical package of seeds) will start to sprout and grow within a few weeks. SeedBallz naturally thin out to produce about 20 plants per ball, creating a lovely, thick cluster of flowers from each ball – great for short screens or container plantings with a lot of impact! Imagine planting out a small backyard meadow or border of beautiful flowers without having to plant out each little seed, one at a time, and then cover them all back up – only to get one or two flowers scattered about here and there. (Talk about a labor-saver!)
Even better, there are many different kinds of SeedBallz available. Want to attract wildlife? Try the Hummingbird & Butterfly Mix with its blend of 25 wildflowers. Do you prefer pinks (and want to help support women affected by breast cancer)? Purchase the all-pink-flowering Seeds of Hope pack, and 5 percent is donated to the cause! There are also Sunflowers, Poppy and Bachelor’s Buttons SeedBallz, as well as a Mesclun Mix and Herb Mix. All in all, there are about 14 types to choose from. What’s more, many of the plants in the various mixes are self-seeding, giving gardeners the chance at a repeat performance for next year.
But as intriguing as this new and easy way of planting a beautiful garden is, one of the neatest aspects to SeedBallz is how the family-owned company that produces it is giving back. When owner Alice Strong bought the company, she needed a way to manufacture its product (which needs to be hand-rolled). Then came her answer:
Alice has a friend who works with a group called Community Provider of Enrichment Services Inc. in Arizona, which works with people who have developmental disabilities. Alice’s friend realized that the little SeedBallz of clay would be a great work support opportunity. The tactile nature of the clay makes SeedBallz a therapeutic and wonderful medium, Alice explains, and it offers a method of employment to a group of Americans eager to work and contribute to making the world a more beautiful place. Today, SeedBallz are hand-rolled by 180 people at two facilities, one in Arizona and one in Oregon.
But that’s not all. SeedBallz has also been involved with the Clinton Global Initiative through donations as an In Kind Sponsor. The company has also donated a host of its Sunflowers mix in an effort to help replant New Orleans and assist with lead remediation to help make it a cleaner, healthier city. (Research shows that sunflowers have a wonderful ability to pull this toxin out of the soil through its roots.) SeedBallz were even prepared for the Dalai Lama’s Seeds of Compassion Workshop in Seattle in April 2008.
And they can help beautify our own gardens, too. As for me, I’ve got the perfect spot for my mix of SeedBallz this year. I’m finally going to grow a beautiful screen of wildflowers right at the back of my garage to screen out the 20 inches of ugly concrete base that mars my little garden. And I can feel good doing it, too – not just because I’ve finally found the time to garden there, but because I know I’m helping others while I’m doing it!
