One of the newest trends in eco-friendly products are these fun cards made from recycled paper pressed with seeds.  I’d assume they’re printed with vegetable-based inks.  So you get it, read it, enjoy it, then plant it!  Cool, huh?  There are a variety of wildflower seeds embedded into the sheets, so you never know what you’ll get.  It’s a nice way of disposing of paper products, letting them biodegrade as they give life to plants.

My favorite gas station is the BP Helios House on Robertson & Olympic in Beverly Hills.  Why?  Because it’s futuristic and as eco-friendly as a gas station could really be.  A bit of a conundrum, I guess, but it fascinates me with its energy-efficient lighting and environmental tips.  One of the things they have is a panel of postcards, each with a tip for greening your life.  When I was there not long after its opening, I grabbed a few of these.  Years later, I am finally putting them to use.

This image inspired me to try skipping the soil and see how it comes to life.

I’ve begun the planting process for one of the cards, so I thought I’d do some research on how to take care of them and get them to grow.  As I was doing that, I came across these pictures that got me excited for when the seeds blossom!  I’m also going to try soaking a sheet just in water until it sprouts.  Hope that works… good thing I have eight sheets to play around with.

A forest of sprouts! (Photograph used by permission from Botanical PaperWorks Inc. http://www.botanicalpaperworks.com)

The hard thing is that my office is so shaded from sunlight that I can’t keep them indoors, yet it’s been very windy outside and there aren’t really any places to put it.  I tried keeping it out by the plants today, but the wind kept drying it out.  I brought it inside at the end of day and hopefully tomorrow will be a milder day.  Unfortunately, rain is in the forecast this week, so we’ll see how that pans out. I’ll post a photo blog on it in a few weeks to show the progress!