Beauties by the roadway

Then, Kelly, a retired nurse, started noticing bright strips of pink and periwinkle on medians and roadside strips of grass on state roads near her home in Haile Plantation, and she wrote to Since You Asked to find out more about the blooms.

"They must be easy to grow and perennial, with nothing but car exhaust and occasional rain for food and moisture," Kelly said. "Can the seeds be bought from the state road commission?"

The flowers were just as surprising to officials with the Florida Department of Transportation when they first noticed the blooms in 1963, said DOT spokeswoman Gina Busscher.

The DOT had bought pasture grass from a farmer south of Tallahassee to use as sod on a median on Interstate 10 that year, and learned that the grass was seeded with crimson clover, a bright red wildflower.

"They got this huge field of magnificent red blooms that year," Busscher said. "The department was flooded with calls. It was such a hit, they decided to knowingly plant them along other state roads, too."

The crimson clover still grows along state roads on the Panhandle, but the clover never took to the soil in Alachua County, Busscher said.

Here, the DOT has had good luck with the bright gold coreopsis and the pink and purple phlox that caught Kelly's eye.

Busscher said the flowers cut down on the monotony of driving on the interstates, keeping drivers awake.

They also cut down on mowing cycles for DOT maintenance crews.

"The flowers last a couple of months, and we don't have to mow that whole time," Busscher said.

Busscher said the downside is that crews have to wait a few weeks after the blooms have died to mow again, to give the seeds time to drop and till the soil for future years.

"It's important that people know that they only grow from seeds, because we get people who go out with buckets to try to transplant them," Busscher said.

State law prevents the DOT from selling the wildflower seed to residents, Busscher said.

Kelly said she'd go online to search for the seeds to purchase for her yard, and said having them around each year would remind her of her favorite thing about her new home.

"The one thing I was really happy to leave behind in Colorado is the short growing season," Kelly said. "Here, you can garden year-round."

Amy Reinink can be reached at 352-374-5088 or reinina@gvillesun.com.