I can't help but notice that Mother Nature seems to grow plants effortlessly while most of my attempts to grow things from seed fail. For example, this mallow (Malva zebrina) decided to grow between the sidewalk and wall, a place I never would have planted it in a million years.



I can't leave it there because it has a tap root, but I'm not going to do anything with it before it freezes. I can't bring myself to hurt something that was so determined to live and be beautiful that it sprouted in a dry crack. (I was going to say soilless crack, but you can see in the picture I've let dirt—I mean soil—accumulate between the gas pipe and the wall of the house.

Back to me versus Mother Nature, we all know that if I had spread a whole package of seeds in trays filled with Miracle Gro soil and watered them every day, I still wouldn't have flowers.

I do acknowledge Mother Nature's secret method, though: numbers. She doesn't plant a measly packet of seeds. She covers these particular plants with pods full of seeds (one pod for each flower) that burst and scatter all over. Of course they don't all sprout, but a lot of them do.

I brought this particular plant into my garden many years ago as a mail order plant several inches tall, and since then it has spread all over my yard. In fact, it tried to take over my perennial bed and I've had to ruthlessly remove every sprout there since. (That's another of Mother Nature's tricks—seeds will sprout years after they've landed on the soil.)

I've tried to fool the seeds into thinking I'm Mother Nature. I've cut off the seed pods and scattered them in an area where I wanted to get them started, a place I thought had ideal conditions for them. Not a single one sprouted. I guess I'll just have to enjoy them where Mother Nature wants to plant them.