Description
This recycled wildflower seed packet is so pretty! The seed packet measures 9 x 12 cm and contains only British species of wildflower seeds – perfect for our native butterflies and bees! The seeds are also grown in the UK – Cornflower, Poppy, Corn Marigold and Corn Chamomile. They are inside the packet in a paper sachet (not foil and plastic, which are not eco-friendly!). The sowing instructions are printed on the back. The seed packet is personalised with your wedding details – please fill in the custom text box above.
You can choose between recycled white and recycled manilla packets.
This is a great eco-friendly wedding favour! We hope your guests will be encouraged to grow more wildflowers once they see how beautiful this little bunch are!
Please let us know the text required in the Personalisation box above. The seeds are viable for a few years so can be stored somewhere cool and dry out of direct sunlight.
Help Nature, sow wildflowers!
About the Seeds
Corn Marigold
Corn Marigold (chrysanthemum segetum) is an annual wildflower with many yellow daisy-like flowers from June to October. It grows to a height of 20 in (51 cm). It is closely related to the Ox-eye Daisy and is also known as Yellow Ox-eye, Bigold, Boodle and Raddles. By the end of the fourteenth-century, tenant farmers were ordered to get rid of it from barley fields because it was such a pest. However, insects like its nectar and it is the food plant of the Chalk Hill Blue butterfly caterpillar.
About Cornflower
Cornflower (centaurea cyanus) is an annual wildflower also known as Bluebottle, Batchelor’s Button or Knapweed. The plant has pretty blue flowers on stems up to 2 ft (60 cm) high. Butterflies and bees love it! It is a rare wildflower in the wild, being previously a common corn field weed but as it blunted sickles when harvesting, it was gradually eradicated.
Its name centaurea comes from Chiron, the centaur, whom the plant cured when an arrow tipped with the blood of Hydra wounded him. Since then the plant has been assumed to drive away snakes. The cyanus part comes from Cyanus, who loved the plant so much he spent all his time in corn fields making garlands from them. When he died, the goddess Flora transformed him into the plant.
About Poppy
Poppies are annual wildflowers that attract butterflies, bees and hoverflies. Poppies are good self-seeders and often spring up in disturbed ground, the seed having lay dormant for many years. The plant’s Anglo-Saxon name is popig. Its Latin name is papaver rhoeas. Rhoeas may come from the Greek, rho, possibly meaning red. Plinus, in ancient Greece, claimed that papaver derived from papa = pap, the mashed up food of babies, poppy juice being added to it to help the infants to sleep. (don’t try this at home!) It may also relate to the Latin papula, “papule”, due to the rounded seed capsules. Poppy seeds have been found that date as far back as 25,000 years. An average Poppy produces about 17,000 seeds.
The Poppy is also a symbol of remembrance because its red flowers represent the blood of the dead. To the ancient Greeks it symbolised regeneration – Venus is sometimes represented with an apple in one hand and a Poppy flower in the other. It has been used in potion as an antidote to those bewitched to love someone. Poppies were made into dolls by country children – fold down the petals to make a skirt and hold it in place with a belt of grass.
Poppies grow to a height of about 2 feet and love being in the sun. Leave the seedheads on after flowering so that the seeds scatter around your garden for next year.
About Corn Chamomile
Corn Chamomile is an annual wildflower with daisy-like flowers from May to August. It grows to a height of 12 – 18 ins (30 – 45 cm). It is a wildflower found in meadows, wasteland and arable land.
