Wedding favours come in all shape and sizes. Some bridal parties choosing to give out chocolates to guests, others opt to give out something more useful such as drinks coasters or wine bottle stoppers and the very generous pop a lottery tickets in as a favour from which guests can become millionaires.
But, more recently, an increasingly popular wedding favour has become flower seeds to plant which can provide a lasting memory of the special day. It is, after all, a great feeling to witness flowers grow and bloom in your garden and recalling the very reason why you planted them – as a consequence of a friend of family member’s wedding ceremony.
Sets of seeds – even cheap flower seeds if you are doing things on a real budget – can be bought in packs, often with a variety of 10 different flowers, and delicately wrapped to fit in with your wedding theme and colour scheme. The variety may be anything from roses to lavender, which provides the ideal favour gift for weddings with a purple, mauve or lilac or even simple white theme wedding.
Part of the popularity in giving flower seeds as a wedding favour is in its life-span, but equally cost comes into it. Some favours can be in excess of £2 or £3 each, which, for a packed wedding venue, can add up to an excessive amount. But flower seeds, and lavender seeds in particular, are much more budget friendly with small packs cheap enough and large 100g packs costing around £5. Such a pack would be more than sufficient to split down and distribute between your guests.
The beauty of using lavender as your chosen seed in wedding favours is that it can last up to 10 years in a garden and, being a hardy perennial like daffodils and bluebells which are also capable of surviving harsh winters, will bloom each spring. Providing the soil the lavender is planted in is well draining and does not retain excessive moisture, the lavender will need little looking after or watering yet will provide a beautiful purple colour and fragrance.
When it comes to planting, the best time to sow the lavender seeds is between six weeks and a month before the end of winter, firstly indoors in a tray, then deeper pots before exposing to the outdoors as spring arrives. Once the seeds have become plants measuring around three inches, it is time to plant in the garden itself where the plants should be kept between 12 and 24 inches apart.
This is an example of a lavender favour, where the seeds are pre-planted in a pot.
Image Courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/psharpley/542025284/
Lavender doesn’t have to be just about providing a nice border to your garden; it can be planted with the idea of using the lavender for other purposes than just blooming in the garden. You can create sweet smelling pot pourri from the flower buds – they will drop off the stems when hung up to dry – or create bunches of lavender stems to use to in a small vase as either decoration or to provide a fresh aroma to a room in your house.
