Did You Know You Can Buy Parkway Wildflowers for Your Garden?

This morning as I was paying a toll on the Garden State Parkway I noticed a sign on the toll booth. I drive the parkway a lot. For about 7 years I have driven on the roadway almost every weekday, between my time in college and work. In all of my years driving the GSP, I had never seen this sign. Apparently, you can buy seeds to fill your garden with Garden State Parkway wildflowers.

The flowers on the parkway are quite lovely and make driving the parkway a little bit more pleasant. According to GSPWildflowers.com, "Just as it was envisioned by Lady Bird Johnson four decades ago, the Garden State Parkway is a showplace for wildflower gardens. These beautiful plantings create havens for birds and butterflies."

Now you can have these beautiful flowers at home. Triumph Plant has officially licensed parkway wildflower seeds for sale. The site states, ..."[You] can bring these same beautiful Garden State Parkway wildflowers and the accompanying birds, butterflies, and pollination insects to your own yard and garden."

There are two types of seed packets available. They offer an annual mix which includes: mixed cosmos, yellow cosmos, and plains coreopsis. The site suggests the latest you should plant these flowers is mid-July because they take about 7 weeks to flower.

There is also the perennial mix, which you can plant up until mid-September. This mix includes black-eyed Susan, purple coneflower, blanketflower, and lanced leaved coreopsis.

Both seed mixes are sold in 1/4 pound bags for $9.99.

The website also gives you tips on planting wildflowers.