invaded by nasturtiums

Princessa R and I were delighted to find a new flower in her garden today -- a bright orange blossom rising on a slender stem from a voluminous plant with distictive round leaves. I had no idea what it was, but came online and eventually identified it as a variety of nasturtium. We established her "picking garden" under her playhouse two years ago, by removing the grass, laying a few inches of black soil, tilling, fertilizing with bone meal, and spreading 2 cans of "mixed wildflower" seed. The cans each claimed to contain 18 to 25 different varieties of wildflower, each capable of covering hundreds of square feet... we dumped the whole lot into a 6x6 square of dirt. Not all the flowers thrived... putting so many seeds in a condensed area meant that only the most aggressive plants took hold... lots of plants I can't identify, but some I can: coneflower, toadflax, phlox, and something I think was mullein. This year in addition to the flowers seeded from last year, we added another can of mixed seed, plus we had a bunch of runty sunflowers, the outcome of some spilled birdseed over the winter. Then today, seemingly from nowhere, the garden is suddenly exploding with nasturtium! We've only seen one blossom - a showy 5-petaled orange blossom with a funnel-shaped nectar tube in the back. The garden is covered with the round saucer-sized leaves. Watching and identifying the plants that emerge from R's garden is great fun. Last year she tossed in a few pumpkin seeds, and ended up with some stray pumpkin vines creeping out of the garden and across the lawn! It's always changing as different plants come into season and crowd out the previous ones. I've taken pictures of many of the random flowers that have shown up... I ought to take the time to upload some and identify them all. Maybe some day I will. I'll admit I'm a bit of a closet botanist. I'm the one that is always trying to coerce Princessa R and her friends out for a "nature walk" to find and identify trees. And I'm proud... How many 5-year olds do you know who know a White Poplar by sight, and can identify four different kinds of maple?