We wanted a favour that would still exist in five years, which ruled out almost everything a caterer suggests and left us with a table, two hundred paper packets and a very long Sunday.
The idea started at the venue. Gerald, who has kept the gardens at Fernwater for nineteen years, walked us past a bed of nigella going to seed and said, quite casually, that most of what grows there began as somebody else's spare packet. That sentence stayed with us for a week. If a garden can be passed along, a wedding can be too.
So the plan became simple. Every guest goes home with something that can be put in the ground. Not a token, not a jar of almonds that lives in a drawer until it is thrown away, but four varieties chosen because they forgive a beginner and flower in the same season we married.
What went into each packet
Nigella, because it self seeds and will keep coming back long after anyone remembers where it came from. Calendula, for colour that lasts from June to the first frost. Cosmos, which grows tall enough to be noticed from a window. Sweet pea, because the smell is worth the trouble of a frame.
Each packet is folded from the offcuts of our invitation stock, which the printer would otherwise have thrown out, and stamped with the same mark used on the order of the day. The sowing note is printed on the inside flap, so it cannot be lost before the packet is opened.
Most of what grows at Fernwater began as somebody else's spare packet.
Keeping them alive past week three
Almost everyone loses seedlings in the third week, and almost always for the same two reasons. They are watered on a schedule rather than by looking at the soil, and they are moved outside before the nights are warm enough. Neither is a failure of talent.
Press a finger into the compost. If it comes out dry to the first knuckle, water. If it comes out damp, wait a day and check again. Move the tray outside for a few hours at a time over a week before it lives there, and keep it out of wind rather than out of sun.
If nothing comes up at all, the packet was not the problem and neither were you. Sow the second half in the spring. That is why there are two sowings in every one of them.
