Nasturtium | Flower Seed Grow Kit

You can live pretty much anywhere from Antarctica to the subtropics and still grow and enjoy nasturtiums!

With the ability to thrive across vastly different climates, Tropaeolum majus (better known as common or garden nasturtium), brings its unique beauty to yards, trellises, and planter boxes from areas with punishing, near arctic-level winter temperatures (-50°F) to regions at the opposite extreme, in the warmest range of all growing zones. This amazing flexibility is just the beginning of the many commendable qualities of the humble nasturtium.

There are more than 200 nasturtium seeds included in this Grow Kit. That is enough seed to plant an area of roughly 225-square feet.

Getting to Know Nasturtiums!

It’s hard not to love Tropaeolum majus — better known as the lovely, easy-going, and cheerful common Nasturtium! This is a marvelously colorful flower, pretty to look at and spicy-sweet to eat. Nasturtiums present many appealing qualities — from their charming aesthetics to great flexibility in uses. Nasturtiums can populate flower beds and flower arrangements, provide pollinator habitat, and even add a delicious peppery spiciness and spot of color to salads. All this, plus they have a nearly effortless ability to thrive in all kinds of growing situations and climates.

Nasturtiums originated in Mexico and Central America, but their warm tones are now popular and present in gardens throughout the world. Nasturtiums feature showy, funnel-shaped flowers which enchant all kinds of pollinators, from honeybees to hummingbirds. They are a host plant for many butterfly species, which love to flit between flowers and hide eggs and cocoons beneath nasturtium’s large wagon-wheel leaves. The flowers show off a great variety of colors, from orange to yellow to butter cream to rich reds and maroons — colors which change and migrate across the flower’s five petals as the blooms age, mottling into striking tie dye-like designs. Deep within the blooms lies a repository of irresistible sweet nectar.

These deep-throated nasturtium blooms levitate on long stalks against a contrasting backdrop of large, disc-like, frog-green leaves. Light, tendrilous vine-like stems drape, climb, and reach across planting beds as nasturtiums grow. Leaves begin as tiny coins and grow into lily-pad size platters that capture jeweled droplets of water. Tropaeolum majus is a great climber for trellises and can cascade downward from window boxes or planters with equal aplomb. In both cases, this wonderful plant flows forth in a thick drape of green discs punctuated with pops of bright, varied color.

Though nasturtiums make for an incredibly kinetic ground cover and are undeniably athletic climbers, always moving and flowing, they present little threat to surrounding plantings, walkways, borders, wood surfaces, or buildings. Nasturtiums are shallow-rooted and can be easily and swiftly removed by hand if they are growing beyond their desired boundaries.

Finally, this generous plant is fully edible! The sweet-fragranced flowers are spicy, the leaves are peppery, and the seed pods and their chick-pea sized seeds can be pickled and used in cooking, much like capers.

In all, nasturtiums, which are said to symbolize patriotism, make for a delightful and delectable addition to any yard or garden!