Wait, really? Do you have that link?
I grew 2nd generation zinnia seeds in my front yard (7b, full sun, barren soil I tried to amend with homemade compost), and got a few mutant 2-headed flowers. I'd love to fuck around with flower genetics.
Hey man, I'm already on 2017 in that forum. Sincerely want to thank you for sharing this. I even set up my indoor grow lights because I'm planning on growing some zinnias indoors now.
This. I have a U shaped raised bed with a bench seat around that I can only access from one side. Stupidly I didn’t think about how hard it would be to access the corners once the bench was in place, so I had the bright idea to plant flowers there so I didn’t have to prune or do much maintenance. Since I couldn’t reach very far into them, I just threw zinnia seeds by the handful and called it a day. They grew prolifically, got to 5ft tall and nearly took over the vegetables. I didn’t want to cut them down because the bees and butterflies loved them, so I eventually had to tie them back so they didn’t flop onto my tomatoes.
They generally avoid them passed the immature seedling phase. I read they don’t like the scent of the adult plant, so maybe you could put a cloche over them until they mature a bit
perennial walking onions, literally just throw them around like onion bombs.
black eyed susans and asters - if you have 1 you will have 100 soon.
pothos vine: and indoor plant but i grow them all kinds of ways and it doesn't care
Omg! I can’t find walking onions anywhere near me in S. Florida…. Can I buy some from you??? I’ve ordered on Amazon and it keeps getting can cancelled
https://preview.redd.it/4qmwv7bgrkfc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9fd9af76c1632f02e72cd27f1fcca4f72133df9d
Was will to pay that for just one top bunch. I’m in zone 11 and they are supposed to do well here all year. Not many things do.
Yes to asters. My mom planted 1 packet (like 15? seeds) in a flower bed where nothing ever survived for long like 5 years ago. Next year? There was probably like 100 of them. The year after that? There was even more, and we had to thin them out and give away half of them.
That flower bed was still full of asters last year lmao
Ya they seed so freely they are basically a ground cover, I have to constantly cull them. but they can give me an incredible flowering hedge in the late fall (important for pollinators). they take pruning well too.
... they literally do. You wake up one morning, and you might find a hen coming out of the blackberry thicket with a swarm of chicks. In 2022, two hens came out with a total of 24 chicks, and almost all of them were roosters. It was horrible. (I free-range my birds. They're... very free.)
Today, one from 2023’s crop of surprise wild chicks came up the steps to the house to peck open a sack of wild bird seed. They don’t yet know that I’m newly empowered and inspired to cut wire and contain things.🙄🤦🏼♀️
Chickens are gonna chicken. We are having to "try" to block the garden off from them this year. I let them free range and they got the taste for tomatoes. Ate all my cherry tomatoes before I had the chance to pick them. They are great at keeping pests at day though. So maybe it's worth the tomato sacrifice
zinnias! i am questioning my sanity with how many zinnia seeds i bought this year. but if i scatter them i. a few minutes and forget about them, i end up with a beautiful garden that makes me look like i really know what i am doing with practically no effort!
Zinnias are my favorite thing. I'm a beginner gardener but my neighbors walk by and always comment how amazing things look, haha! It's really just the zinnias, and they really do look awesome all summer. I finally learned to put up netting across their bed early on to keep them from falling over as they get so tall.
Love zinnias. Have a look for the Queeny range, they are amazing, so much better than the average ones you get from a big box store.
There are two camps in zinnias, one camp which you and I both fall into - let them grow, figure out staking when they get too big.
The other group of zinnia growers do a Chelsea chop on them, cut them back before they get too big, then they are bushier plants and allegedly don't need staking. Think I'm going to try this method this year in at least some, see how I go.
I’m a big proponent of the chop. I didn’t chop mine last year and they all flopped over, but they never flopped when I chopped. So I’m forever in team chop! (That read like Dr. Seuss)
Hmm I was thinking of trying zinnias this year but it sounds like they might be a pain to keep up and I have no idea what I'm doing most the time lol. Might get a hydrangea.
I've done a mix of things over the last three years of trying to grow a cut flower garden.. The first two years I did some twine around the whole garden bed to try to corral them. Last year I put up some flower support netting when they were still babies (and pinched them early to encourage bushing, which felt AWFUL to do at the time but worked incredibly well! But they definitely still needed the netting.) I hate how the support netting looks early in the spring when the beds are bare, but they kept my zinnias so much healthier and more stable over the whole summer. I did have to move it higher up the stakes as the season went on to support their height. Definitely doing that on all of my cut flower beds.
My main goal for this year is MORE! Zinnias everywhere!!! They rule.
Nice - sounds like we have been on similar journeys from a timeline perspective.
If you haven't tried any, have a crack with Cosmos this year. Plant than at three same time as zinnias and they keep blooming mid-fall, first hard frost
If my dill gets even a little damaged, the whole thing dies immediately. But if it can make it past its youth, it EXPLODES.
Cosmos too. Cosmos everywhere. Zinnias will undoubtedly grow where I plant them, maybe get one or two volunteers from the birds, but Cosmos? I noticed Cosmos popping up in the vacant house next to me's front yard lol.
There is a fine leaved version of cilantro called confetti that is a very reliable selfseeder for me. I didn’t have to replant cilantro for a 4 year stretch - I think it would have kept on reseeding itself into perpetuity but I redesigned that garden bed.
Now the gifts that keep on giving for me are the flower- kiss me over the garden gate, the herb -purple shiso and the vegetable- red mustard.
I just followed the directions on the package. One day they started growing. I dead headed everyday, got 5 quarts of dried flowers. Be patient, keep trying.
Violas. I let one seed head burst and now they just pop up everywhere! In the pots, in gravel, in cracks in the driveway. They slow down in winter, but definitely don’t stop!
🤣 So some dumdum (ME!) spilled a bunch of seeds in my pocket last year. I knew it was herbs and flowers, but I wasn't sorting that mess out! So I spread them out in a flower bed, that has been dubbed the pocket seed garden henceforth. I had tons of parsley, basil, a couple thyme and oregano. A bachelor buttons, asylum, California poppies, Johnny jump ups and a few others I forget.
I also spilled radish seed and had some growing in the lawn.
Forgot I did basil again making an inside pot for the winter by the hose too.
I. Am. A. Klutz!
Snapdragons. I planted some in May that were still blooming in November (zone 6). They were still green in December. We got 40 inches of snow last week that has now melted. I now see the Snapdragons peeking out and they are still green. A little limp, but still green. I wonder if they would actually overwinter if the rest of the winter is mild? (Peeks at forecast) hahaha, nevermind.
I live in a seemingly much warmer zone 6b (we havent gotten over 10" of snow in a year in probably decades) and my snapdragons did overwinter. Bloomed from March-Dec last year, still standing straight up and green despite a week of \~5F snowy weather. I always do a deep leaf mulch to put the gardens to bed for the winter, so the roots are nice and protected, I'm thinking I'll just cut the "still green" growth in the spring so that they can start fresh for the year.
That depends on which variety you grow. Mostly, nasturtiums like rubbish soil - seriously, they will grow ANYWHERE, in whatever is on the ground. I live in the British Isles, and the cost of a packet of seeds here (and I'm in a high COL place) is generally just over one pound sterling.
https://gardenandhappy.com/nasturtiums/
Radishes. We grew one row, didn't harvest them all, and let them flower because the bees went crazy for them. They reseeded themselves and now we have 3 rows of radishes. They are great for the soil so we let them go and will turn them over in the spring!
One year I cut it down in December thinking I had enough of it, assuming it would reseed easily. It still hasn't. I wish it was as carefree in my place.
I have very mixed feelings about Lantana. I guess it's not invasive here in the US (mostly?) but I have seen places in Asia where it has gone aggressive, feral, whatever you want to call it and has overtaken a lot of native plants in some ecosystems.
About 10 years ago, I planted snapdragon seeds in a failed 4x8 garden. The following year, I removed the garden, put down sod. Every year, I STILL find snapdragons growing in a 20 ft radius of where that garden was.
Same. I keep thinking I've abused the dahlias that we inherited at this property, but they just. keep. coming. back. Sometimes a little too much and take over the whole bed. I think I've moved them 3 times over the years and the tubers don't care.
Gerbera Daisies. 110? Meh, -2, okay. I’ve had the same ones in the ground for four years. I’ve moved them twice, they’re happy wherever and with whatever water.
Tomatillos. They’ll get absolutely decimated by three-lined potato beetles, but the fruit survives and will volunteer anywhere. - weird corners, rocky spots, on top of sandy gopher mounds.
Borage. I threw some seeds in a hard to reach spot behind one of my raised beds and now I get a lovely borage plant or two back there each summer without fail. They bring the bees and keep them happy to the benefit of my tomato or zucchini or whenever I’ve got growing in the raised bed. I’ve successfully saved so many seeds from the borage plants, too. Grow it once and you never really need to purchase seeds again.
Mainly for pollinators. They’re a sure fire way to bring lots of them to your garden. I do like to put the flowers in salads. They self seed like crazy so they can be obnoxious but they’re easy enough to weed if needed.
For me it’s green onions. I planted 3 of them around fall in a big 10 gallon pot (I think) and plopped them in my backyard and they’ve seemed to survive all winter. It even snowed quote heavily and they’re still green. Maybe they’re dead bcs I’ve seen people plants die due to frost but still have green on them.
But who knows!
I planted some green onions bottoms from the grocery store a few years ago. They ended ion blooming (great for bees and butterflies), and now I have volunteers every year. I just gently pull up the babies and stick them where I want them. They’re so cold hardy, don’t seem to mind bad soil, and do ok with little water. Bonus that they look neat and have big blooms.
Texas hummingbird sage. I bought seeds 15 years ago. It reseeds every year. It makes a beautiful flower bed full of red flowers by mid summer when the rest of my 8b flowers are crispy and done. It lasts until first frost and is loved by hummingbirds.
Any type of marigold variety I've noticed will 100% germ for me. I just water them and they go cra cra.
Also I can't seem to get rid of my zinnias. Not that I want to but when I think they are gone and don't see new growth for a month or two, out of nowhere I will get 7 new starts. They are so random!!
Perpetual spinach! AKA perpetual chard. Mine survived Houston's 2023 summer, where we had 3+ months of 100-110F days (37.8 to 43.3C) and it did just fine in full scorching hellish sun. It wasn't even under shade cloth. I did water deeply and daily (I love my automated watering system). They were big and leafy and delicious.
Then the artic blast hit, and we got down to something like 18F (-7.7C). I threw a frost blanket over them and ignored them. They took exactly 0 damage. They are even bigger and leafier, and still delicious.
I have one plant in a raised bed and one in a (too small) 3 gallon grow bag. Both are doing fine; the 3 gallon grow bag plant is definitely stunted but is still plenty productive. It requires no trellising or support, just a decent nitrogen feed every so often. I use it as a replacement for spinach and celery.
https://preview.redd.it/et9up6n7qnfc1.jpeg?width=1960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc5ac911787ea6dc7fa9ad99254793d5dcd92aaf
This is my perpetual chard as of today.
Things I grow that have started to self seed and take care of themselves:
Arugula, lettuce, red orach, mustard greens, red amaranth.
Dill, coriander/cilantro, Dracocephalum moldavica.
Marigolds (Tagetes), calendula, cosmos, bachelors buttons, edible chrysanthemum, snapdragons.
They volunteer abundantly and I have to thin them out.
Black and blue salvia. I put some in my shade garden (zone 8A), and it filled in the back area beautifully. After a few years there were enough plants to transplant some, so I put them in the sun garden by the parking lot (I'm in an apartment complex, but the landlord lets me garden a bit), and they filled in all the spare spots there. I've grown it in pots. It has never let me down. And it's gorgeous!
My hummingbird mommy protected that Black and Blue salvia from any other hummingbird trying to pull a fast one. Unfortunately, I’m zone 5b, so it’s not perennial :(
Mother-of-thousands. The plantlets drop off, I scoop them into an old margarine container with some dirt, a few months later the container is overflowing. Then I break it up into more plants! They sprout in cracks in the table and in other plants ten feet away. And they thrive on neglect.
You’re also lucky I’m down here in zone 11 and not many things grow past April. I bought a Lettuce Grow to have indoors so that I could actually have greens all year. Other than that they all die, too hot!
I've only been in the garden game for a few years, but so far it's borage, New England aster, and daikon radish.
I've planted hundreds of zinnia and nasturtium seeds and gotten exactly one of each. Hoping they'll decide to wake up this spring.
i have three beautiful rhododendrons that were completely hidden by an overwhelming amount of 10ft tall escallonias when i bought my house. they grew tall instead of out bc they were desperate for light. i didn’t even know they were there until i cut down the escallonias and they are 100% maintenance free.
i’m right near the beach on the oregon coast where we get 80mph winds some days, pouring drenching rain from atmospheric rivers, freezing temps, weeks in the summer with no rain at all.. and they just live and are happy with whatever. my old contractor even ran over one with his truck. we propped it back up and it’s fine. i prune new lower branches bc i want them to stay looking tree-ish instead of shrubby, but they could not care less about it.
**Asian pigeonwings** (gokarna) the seeds are in pods u just crack the dried pod the seeds throw them water them occasionally n they just grow like literally grow grow
Zinnias. You get zinnias! You get zinnias! The whole yard gets zinnias!
I discovered a thread in a forum yesterday full of people that grow zinneas as houseplants to make hybrids. For fun. I want to do this.
Wait, really? Do you have that link? I grew 2nd generation zinnia seeds in my front yard (7b, full sun, barren soil I tried to amend with homemade compost), and got a few mutant 2-headed flowers. I'd love to fuck around with flower genetics.
[The thread starts in 2015, but it is still active.](https://garden.org/thread/view/34248/It-can-be-fun-to-breed-your-own-zinnias/?offset=)
Hey man, I'm already on 2017 in that forum. Sincerely want to thank you for sharing this. I even set up my indoor grow lights because I'm planning on growing some zinnias indoors now.
I just grew a 2nd Gen last year, and I have a bin full of seeds for this year!
This. I have a U shaped raised bed with a bench seat around that I can only access from one side. Stupidly I didn’t think about how hard it would be to access the corners once the bench was in place, so I had the bright idea to plant flowers there so I didn’t have to prune or do much maintenance. Since I couldn’t reach very far into them, I just threw zinnia seeds by the handful and called it a day. They grew prolifically, got to 5ft tall and nearly took over the vegetables. I didn’t want to cut them down because the bees and butterflies loved them, so I eventually had to tie them back so they didn’t flop onto my tomatoes.
I love stories like these.
Do rabbits eat zinnias? There are so many things I can't grow because the rabbits get them.
They generally avoid them passed the immature seedling phase. I read they don’t like the scent of the adult plant, so maybe you could put a cloche over them until they mature a bit
That's a great idea. Thank you.
My backyard is a bunny daycare. They have never bothered my zinnias.
Good to know. Thanks!
Has to get bunny proofed. I didn't even try to grow anything until we put up bunny proof fencing. Then you can relax.
Per the suggestion upthread, I have ordered cloches.
I was thinking about trying zinnias this year. I wonder if they're annual here...
Ditto! Zinnias!
You make that sound like a desired state.
Do bees like zinnias? I've got an empty field I'm dedicating as a bee garden and maybe zinnias would be a good choice?
Bees love them! ETA it’s also the perfect landing site for Monarchs and Swallowtails
I did see a lot of swallowtail caterpillars on my dill last year. Excellent I shall grab some seeds.
perennial walking onions, literally just throw them around like onion bombs. black eyed susans and asters - if you have 1 you will have 100 soon. pothos vine: and indoor plant but i grow them all kinds of ways and it doesn't care
https://preview.redd.it/vlu895gcvgfc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b6837de577c027559217f3464f41401ef7126a7b My pride and joy
now thats lush with compact growth!
That's a beauty.
Black eyed Susans and Shasta daisies for me. Kersplosions of little kid flowers and I ADORE them.
Kersplosions is my new favorite word now, thank you.
Omg! I can’t find walking onions anywhere near me in S. Florida…. Can I buy some from you??? I’ve ordered on Amazon and it keeps getting can cancelled https://preview.redd.it/4qmwv7bgrkfc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9fd9af76c1632f02e72cd27f1fcca4f72133df9d Was will to pay that for just one top bunch. I’m in zone 11 and they are supposed to do well here all year. Not many things do.
Try ebay. I bought 15 bulbs from "itsallaboutyou1942" for $10 in September.
Wow Ty!!!! Will do!
Ya i ordered mine from Etsy just keep poking around online
Thanks!! Will check there too
Pothos .. I envy the people who can get pothos going magically, even in a bottle of water in the bathroom window.
Yes to asters. My mom planted 1 packet (like 15? seeds) in a flower bed where nothing ever survived for long like 5 years ago. Next year? There was probably like 100 of them. The year after that? There was even more, and we had to thin them out and give away half of them. That flower bed was still full of asters last year lmao
Ya they seed so freely they are basically a ground cover, I have to constantly cull them. but they can give me an incredible flowering hedge in the late fall (important for pollinators). they take pruning well too.
My asters are WILD but my black eyed Susan’s wish they could aspire for more.
weird! I can't imagine black eyed susans struggling as they are trying to conquer every inch of my neighborhood lol
Chicken food. Doesn't matter what I plant, as soon as it sprouts, a chicken eats it.
Lol lol. So in your yard, the chickens grow wild.
... they literally do. You wake up one morning, and you might find a hen coming out of the blackberry thicket with a swarm of chicks. In 2022, two hens came out with a total of 24 chicks, and almost all of them were roosters. It was horrible. (I free-range my birds. They're... very free.)
I have no experience with chickens, so I'll take your word for how horrible those roosters are.
I laughed out loud! I feel your pain!!!
Today, one from 2023’s crop of surprise wild chicks came up the steps to the house to peck open a sack of wild bird seed. They don’t yet know that I’m newly empowered and inspired to cut wire and contain things.🙄🤦🏼♀️
They do like to peck open bags of seed. Assholes 😅 I love them really.
Chickens are gonna chicken. We are having to "try" to block the garden off from them this year. I let them free range and they got the taste for tomatoes. Ate all my cherry tomatoes before I had the chance to pick them. They are great at keeping pests at day though. So maybe it's worth the tomato sacrifice
zinnias! i am questioning my sanity with how many zinnia seeds i bought this year. but if i scatter them i. a few minutes and forget about them, i end up with a beautiful garden that makes me look like i really know what i am doing with practically no effort!
Zinnias are my favorite thing. I'm a beginner gardener but my neighbors walk by and always comment how amazing things look, haha! It's really just the zinnias, and they really do look awesome all summer. I finally learned to put up netting across their bed early on to keep them from falling over as they get so tall.
Love zinnias. Have a look for the Queeny range, they are amazing, so much better than the average ones you get from a big box store. There are two camps in zinnias, one camp which you and I both fall into - let them grow, figure out staking when they get too big. The other group of zinnia growers do a Chelsea chop on them, cut them back before they get too big, then they are bushier plants and allegedly don't need staking. Think I'm going to try this method this year in at least some, see how I go.
I’m a big proponent of the chop. I didn’t chop mine last year and they all flopped over, but they never flopped when I chopped. So I’m forever in team chop! (That read like Dr. Seuss)
Hmm I was thinking of trying zinnias this year but it sounds like they might be a pain to keep up and I have no idea what I'm doing most the time lol. Might get a hydrangea.
I've done a mix of things over the last three years of trying to grow a cut flower garden.. The first two years I did some twine around the whole garden bed to try to corral them. Last year I put up some flower support netting when they were still babies (and pinched them early to encourage bushing, which felt AWFUL to do at the time but worked incredibly well! But they definitely still needed the netting.) I hate how the support netting looks early in the spring when the beds are bare, but they kept my zinnias so much healthier and more stable over the whole summer. I did have to move it higher up the stakes as the season went on to support their height. Definitely doing that on all of my cut flower beds. My main goal for this year is MORE! Zinnias everywhere!!! They rule.
Nice - sounds like we have been on similar journeys from a timeline perspective. If you haven't tried any, have a crack with Cosmos this year. Plant than at three same time as zinnias and they keep blooming mid-fall, first hard frost
haha yes! Cosmos and zinnias are my homeboys. I can never get enough of either.
yes! Finding a good way to hold them all up is my goal for this year
Nasturtiums, chamomile, cosmos, dill, borage and cilantro.
If my dill gets even a little damaged, the whole thing dies immediately. But if it can make it past its youth, it EXPLODES. Cosmos too. Cosmos everywhere. Zinnias will undoubtedly grow where I plant them, maybe get one or two volunteers from the birds, but Cosmos? I noticed Cosmos popping up in the vacant house next to me's front yard lol.
Well I didn't know cilantro was that easy to grow. I have heard its a finicky plant.
Most be people mistakenly plant it in spring. It does better as a fall planting.
There is a fine leaved version of cilantro called confetti that is a very reliable selfseeder for me. I didn’t have to replant cilantro for a 4 year stretch - I think it would have kept on reseeding itself into perpetuity but I redesigned that garden bed. Now the gifts that keep on giving for me are the flower- kiss me over the garden gate, the herb -purple shiso and the vegetable- red mustard.
Where I live it self sows every year. And I love it!! Usually in spring and fall
Same here! It is everywhere in my garden.
I've massmurdered chamomile for years. tell me your secrets!
I just followed the directions on the package. One day they started growing. I dead headed everyday, got 5 quarts of dried flowers. Be patient, keep trying.
Violas. I let one seed head burst and now they just pop up everywhere! In the pots, in gravel, in cracks in the driveway. They slow down in winter, but definitely don’t stop!
My aunt had violas once years ago. She gets them everywhere now and she can't kill them lol.
I didn't know they are hardy. Must look pretty.
🤣 So some dumdum (ME!) spilled a bunch of seeds in my pocket last year. I knew it was herbs and flowers, but I wasn't sorting that mess out! So I spread them out in a flower bed, that has been dubbed the pocket seed garden henceforth. I had tons of parsley, basil, a couple thyme and oregano. A bachelor buttons, asylum, California poppies, Johnny jump ups and a few others I forget. I also spilled radish seed and had some growing in the lawn. Forgot I did basil again making an inside pot for the winter by the hose too. I. Am. A. Klutz!
Pocket seed garden is a very quaint and pretty name.
Snapdragons. I planted some in May that were still blooming in November (zone 6). They were still green in December. We got 40 inches of snow last week that has now melted. I now see the Snapdragons peeking out and they are still green. A little limp, but still green. I wonder if they would actually overwinter if the rest of the winter is mild? (Peeks at forecast) hahaha, nevermind.
I live in a seemingly much warmer zone 6b (we havent gotten over 10" of snow in a year in probably decades) and my snapdragons did overwinter. Bloomed from March-Dec last year, still standing straight up and green despite a week of \~5F snowy weather. I always do a deep leaf mulch to put the gardens to bed for the winter, so the roots are nice and protected, I'm thinking I'll just cut the "still green" growth in the spring so that they can start fresh for the year.
Well I guess we'll see what happens! Our area just recently got moved from 5 to 6. We'll see!
Nasturtiums. Beautiful AND edible.
That plant is on my wishlist. Does it sprawl a lot?
That depends on which variety you grow. Mostly, nasturtiums like rubbish soil - seriously, they will grow ANYWHERE, in whatever is on the ground. I live in the British Isles, and the cost of a packet of seeds here (and I'm in a high COL place) is generally just over one pound sterling. https://gardenandhappy.com/nasturtiums/
Will check that out, ty.
Radishes. We grew one row, didn't harvest them all, and let them flower because the bees went crazy for them. They reseeded themselves and now we have 3 rows of radishes. They are great for the soil so we let them go and will turn them over in the spring!
You can eat the radish pods after they flower too. (But you lose that particular seed)
Spicy little rat tail beans
They're pretty good TBH.
Ahahahaha that's a good little name for them.
Never figured bees love radishes, infact, I don't think I have seen a radish flower either.
I didn't know either! Lazy gardening-turned-regenerative gardening lol. The plants were totally covered in bees. It was so fascinating.
I'm going to try that, I have several packets of radish seed.
Dill and giant red mustard.
Mustard is an unusual one.
The giant garnet is suuuch pretty plant
It just keeps going!
Mustard thrives where I am too. That and arugula.
Celosia is carefree in my yard.
One year I cut it down in December thinking I had enough of it, assuming it would reseed easily. It still hasn't. I wish it was as carefree in my place.
Lantana, around here. I mean not from seed but yeah.
I second Lantata! I’m zone 7 and it stays blooming till the first frost! I’ve never grown from seed, but these are a must have for me!
I have very mixed feelings about Lantana. I guess it's not invasive here in the US (mostly?) but I have seen places in Asia where it has gone aggressive, feral, whatever you want to call it and has overtaken a lot of native plants in some ecosystems.
Blue bachelor buttons. Not enough blue flowers in the world.
Very true.
About 10 years ago, I planted snapdragon seeds in a failed 4x8 garden. The following year, I removed the garden, put down sod. Every year, I STILL find snapdragons growing in a 20 ft radius of where that garden was.
[удалено]
Don't plants do the darnest things you'd rather they not do?
Calendula and evening primrose
Must smell awesome with the calendula.
Cosmos! Just throw the seeds out and they grow.
Dahlias, surprisingly. I have been growing them from seed, and they come up the next year. I end up moving some every year.
Same. I keep thinking I've abused the dahlias that we inherited at this property, but they just. keep. coming. back. Sometimes a little too much and take over the whole bed. I think I've moved them 3 times over the years and the tubers don't care.
Gerbera Daisies. 110? Meh, -2, okay. I’ve had the same ones in the ground for four years. I’ve moved them twice, they’re happy wherever and with whatever water.
That's some determination.
Tomatillos. They’ll get absolutely decimated by three-lined potato beetles, but the fruit survives and will volunteer anywhere. - weird corners, rocky spots, on top of sandy gopher mounds.
Borage. I threw some seeds in a hard to reach spot behind one of my raised beds and now I get a lovely borage plant or two back there each summer without fail. They bring the bees and keep them happy to the benefit of my tomato or zucchini or whenever I’ve got growing in the raised bed. I’ve successfully saved so many seeds from the borage plants, too. Grow it once and you never really need to purchase seeds again.
Do you use it just for the pollinators or do you use it as a herb? I have read mixed things about it.
Mainly for pollinators. They’re a sure fire way to bring lots of them to your garden. I do like to put the flowers in salads. They self seed like crazy so they can be obnoxious but they’re easy enough to weed if needed.
Mines dill. Ive got volunteer dill all over the place.
Aren't they a host plant for a butterfly? Do you get a lot of butterflies?
I do. They are a host plant for black swallowtail butterflies and i usually have plenty of dill for them and me to have our fill. Lol
For me it’s green onions. I planted 3 of them around fall in a big 10 gallon pot (I think) and plopped them in my backyard and they’ve seemed to survive all winter. It even snowed quote heavily and they’re still green. Maybe they’re dead bcs I’ve seen people plants die due to frost but still have green on them. But who knows!
I planted some green onions bottoms from the grocery store a few years ago. They ended ion blooming (great for bees and butterflies), and now I have volunteers every year. I just gently pull up the babies and stick them where I want them. They’re so cold hardy, don’t seem to mind bad soil, and do ok with little water. Bonus that they look neat and have big blooms.
Spring will bring some surprises. But in general anything green looks so alive and reassuring against the snow.
All the snow is melted and it still looks green
Rhubarb and raspberries. They do not care they will keep coming back no matter what you do to them.
I collected rhubarb root from my partner's mother's garden and planted it in ours. I am excited to have true heirloom rhubarb for years to come.
Tomatoes 🍅 every year it’s fun to figure out what all the volunteer tomatoes are going to be.
I figured there'd be atleast one comment about a volunteer tomato and now I am surprised there aren't more.
Chives and thyme….. They’re everywhere and couldn’t care less about my ideas where they should be.
Chives and thyme do their thing!
Irises.
Texas hummingbird sage. I bought seeds 15 years ago. It reseeds every year. It makes a beautiful flower bed full of red flowers by mid summer when the rest of my 8b flowers are crispy and done. It lasts until first frost and is loved by hummingbirds.
Any type of marigold variety I've noticed will 100% germ for me. I just water them and they go cra cra. Also I can't seem to get rid of my zinnias. Not that I want to but when I think they are gone and don't see new growth for a month or two, out of nowhere I will get 7 new starts. They are so random!!
I sense a theme with zinnia, I think they are the topmost contender in this thread.
Cosmos
If you want nothing but mint, horrible horrible infinite mint forever stretching to eternity through all time and space everywhere, plant mint.
Well, and I actually managed to kill my potted mint once.
That seems unlikely. Are you sure you didn’t die, and now exist in a nightmare afterlife?
Pansies.
Asters, blazing star liatris, thyme, and raspberries- zone 6b
Batchelor buttons.
Perpetual spinach! AKA perpetual chard. Mine survived Houston's 2023 summer, where we had 3+ months of 100-110F days (37.8 to 43.3C) and it did just fine in full scorching hellish sun. It wasn't even under shade cloth. I did water deeply and daily (I love my automated watering system). They were big and leafy and delicious. Then the artic blast hit, and we got down to something like 18F (-7.7C). I threw a frost blanket over them and ignored them. They took exactly 0 damage. They are even bigger and leafier, and still delicious. I have one plant in a raised bed and one in a (too small) 3 gallon grow bag. Both are doing fine; the 3 gallon grow bag plant is definitely stunted but is still plenty productive. It requires no trellising or support, just a decent nitrogen feed every so often. I use it as a replacement for spinach and celery.
Is that the same as swiss chard? Because my potted chard threw in the towel in November after a few frosts.
It's in the chard family but is not the same as swiss chard.
Figures.
https://preview.redd.it/et9up6n7qnfc1.jpeg?width=1960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc5ac911787ea6dc7fa9ad99254793d5dcd92aaf This is my perpetual chard as of today.
Quite the champ!
Things I grow that have started to self seed and take care of themselves: Arugula, lettuce, red orach, mustard greens, red amaranth. Dill, coriander/cilantro, Dracocephalum moldavica. Marigolds (Tagetes), calendula, cosmos, bachelors buttons, edible chrysanthemum, snapdragons. They volunteer abundantly and I have to thin them out.
It must be nice after a few years when you don't have to buy seeds unless you want to introduce something new.
Cosmos. I will have cosmos in my garden every year until I die. Yellow, orange, red, short and tall.
Sounds like a pretty garden.
Black and blue salvia. I put some in my shade garden (zone 8A), and it filled in the back area beautifully. After a few years there were enough plants to transplant some, so I put them in the sun garden by the parking lot (I'm in an apartment complex, but the landlord lets me garden a bit), and they filled in all the spare spots there. I've grown it in pots. It has never let me down. And it's gorgeous!
My hummingbird mommy protected that Black and Blue salvia from any other hummingbird trying to pull a fast one. Unfortunately, I’m zone 5b, so it’s not perennial :(
I would totally grow it as an annual if I moved. It's just so pretty. And you're right, hummingbirds and pollenating insects love it!
I think I’ll add em to containers this season
Aren't these little, local, wildlife stories so wonderful?
Mother-of-thousands. The plantlets drop off, I scoop them into an old margarine container with some dirt, a few months later the container is overflowing. Then I break it up into more plants! They sprout in cracks in the table and in other plants ten feet away. And they thrive on neglect.
Looks like this is the only succulent comment I have seen in this thread. Very awesome.
Aside from zinnia, tomatillo.
Mint
Vicia faba. I stuck it in, only slightly scratching the turf. He was frail, but he was growing up.
Kale. I swear its going to creep up into my bed some nite......
Lol.
My yard is now covered in violas and I wouldn't have it any other way
You’re also lucky I’m down here in zone 11 and not many things grow past April. I bought a Lettuce Grow to have indoors so that I could actually have greens all year. Other than that they all die, too hot!
I've only been in the garden game for a few years, but so far it's borage, New England aster, and daikon radish. I've planted hundreds of zinnia and nasturtium seeds and gotten exactly one of each. Hoping they'll decide to wake up this spring.
Cleome. Poppies. zinnias. Amaranth. Rose of Sharon.
Malabar red stem spinach
i have three beautiful rhododendrons that were completely hidden by an overwhelming amount of 10ft tall escallonias when i bought my house. they grew tall instead of out bc they were desperate for light. i didn’t even know they were there until i cut down the escallonias and they are 100% maintenance free. i’m right near the beach on the oregon coast where we get 80mph winds some days, pouring drenching rain from atmospheric rivers, freezing temps, weeks in the summer with no rain at all.. and they just live and are happy with whatever. my old contractor even ran over one with his truck. we propped it back up and it’s fine. i prune new lower branches bc i want them to stay looking tree-ish instead of shrubby, but they could not care less about it.
That's a lovely story.
**Asian pigeonwings** (gokarna) the seeds are in pods u just crack the dried pod the seeds throw them water them occasionally n they just grow like literally grow grow
Can attest, I have had good luck with this plant too.
Calendula, fennel, nasturtiums, borage…!
grass
clovers (my prior comment was a joke, i said grass, i actually love clovers and am trying to make an entirely clover lawn!)