Flower seedlings or flower seeds?

I am no gardener. Our garden was one of the Senior Cat's pleasures. He was an enthusiastic "organic" gardener. The garden was untidy in the sort of way that also says "productive". We ate tomatoes, carrots, beans, peas, spinach, pumpkin, lettuce, and other things he had grown. As he grew older and less able to dig he got help in the form of the man who did the gardening at the church and at the cathedral. S.... still comes in. He keeps the place in some sort of order. Between us we try to do the things that need to be done.

The soil out there was dreadful when we first came. Now S... tells me it is some of the best soil he has worked with. It is a shame  but I just don't have the time to spend out there. Middle Cat would come and use the space but she doesn't have the time (or the energy) either.

I have put in a single tomato plant this year. It seems to be quite happy. Perhaps this is because I remember to water it and I "talk" nicely to it. The lavender bush by the clothesline got a severe haircut this year and now the bees are busy grooming it. We have lemons and far too many cumquats that nobody wants. (No, I do NOT do brandied cumquats and my friend R... who did has gone to live in another state.) 

There are planter boxes along the front of the house. The Senior Cat would put things in them that he liked. It didn't matter to him that there was no sort of order in all this. He put in pansies, petunias, lobelia, and other things. I did suggest that the sweet peas might need a trellis but, apart from that, I left him to it.  This year I put in purple petunias, white petunias after the pansies were finished.  I bought seedlings because nothing would have happened without that.

But earlier in the year I found a packet of mixed flower seeds. They were not the sort of mixed seeds you get from the garden shelf in the supermarket. They came from a reputable company interstate. I remember them coming as a "gift" with an order the Senior Cat had made. He had never used the seeds. The label suggested they needed to be used this year. 

I flung them across the side patch and thought, "If any of them grow that will be nice but I am not expecting it."

Perhaps because I did not expect it some strange things have happened.  There have been flowers there...poppies first and then other things - some I don't recognise. I found some hearts ease sneaking up on me a couple of weeks ago. There was a viola watching me too. And now there are some wonderful blue cornflowers playing there. They all seem to be getting on very well with one another. 

I think I will leave them to it for now. They don't need any help from me apart from a little water now and then. It says a lot about the soil the Senior Cat nurtured - and how seeds grow. I am not sure I really need seedlings.