A friend of mine once told me that his method as a flower gardener is to see what grows and then pull out the weeds. It's actually a viable approach to gardening, especially if you're the type of person who doesn't mind a little mess. This method works well in cottage or prairie style gardens.
For a while, my boyfriend moved to a new house about every five years. In almost all cases, he inherited the garden from the previous owner, and his laissez-faire theory of gardening worked quite well. He was definitely a seasoned gardener who knew the difference between a flower seedling and a weed.
If that sounds tempting, now is the time to start planning for prime blooming season. Pay attention to the places where your flowers will grow and mark them. This will show which flower seedlings may appear on the site next spring.
Planting future plants will make your garden more self-sustaining.
The obvious option is to plant perennials that will survive the winter and grow every year. They can remain in place for many years until they mature or grow so large that they occasionally split and move.
A potential downside to perennials is that they sometimes don't generate enough interest during the garden season. That's why many gardeners plant annuals that add welcome color to an otherwise drab perennial garden.
Some peers are successfully accepted year after year. Since many annuals sold are hybrids, their first year is likely to be the most colorful. Hybrid plants often do not produce a crop for the second year and beyond. Instead, they seek to return to their ancestral traits. The color may not be as bright, the height or shape may be a little more "wild" as is often the case with open-pollinated heirloom varieties.
Cutting off summer-faded flowers, so-called dead buds, is a common method of controlling annuals for new, fresh blooms throughout the season. However, if you want your annuals to bloom next year, remember that the main reason plants bloom is to produce seeds for propagation. So stop at the end of the season and let some flowers complete their life cycle to set seed.
Here is a list of annuals that I have had in my garden over the years: sunflowers, marigolds, marigolds, cosmea, celosia, sheep's ears, monarda, nicotiana, California poppies, ornamental herbs such as dill, sedge, sage, calendula, nasturtium : , Malva (which are biennials), Verbascum, Cleoma, Lichnis coronarnus (a perennial that produces many seeds), Alyssum, sweet peas, gypsophila, chamomile, morning glory and even old petunias. There's probably more than I've had over the years, but that's all I can think of right now.
After a mild winter, more annuals may sprout the following spring. For example, one spring after a particularly mild winter, I felt the pressure of castor beans growing on their own.
If you're new to gardening, it may take a little research and a season or two to tell the difference between a weed and a flower you want to keep. That's what makes gardening fun and exciting.
