Garden Flowers

[Pulsegleaner]

IF you read the literature that comes with these packages, they tell you to weed the beds. I have 3 kinds of weeds in my wildflower bed, fortunately ALL has shallow roots. One of the extra "weeds" is turnip greens, that have taken over many of my beds. THEY.ARE.WELCOME!!

Problem is you never really know what is going to become a weed when you sow it. It took us years to get rid of the Japanese Lanterns, and the Peruvian Four O' Clocks.

And I certainly didn't EXPECT that the senna seeds and rice beans I tossed our for the critters to eat would wind up hiding in the soil and coming up year after year for the rest of my life (the rice beans are almost gone now, but I'm STILL yanking senna plants out of both the cucumber garden and the patio pots.

I suppose I should just count myself lucky I managed to catch the wild soybeans before the spread (given how many seeds those ten plants made, had I let them spread, I'd be up to my ears in vines now) and the Devil's Horsewhip didn't become established.

Theoretically, I also still get a few sprouts from my bindweed relative growing test of three or four years ago in the right hand Side Patio pot, but since none of them seem to be able to compete enough with the lablab beans to not get completely smothered and never make any flowers, that's not exactly a big problem. Ditto whatever comes up in the white pot in the middle (I'd actually be curious to see what some of those legume sprouts turned into, but none seem to reach a flowering size, and the senna THERE tends to shade everything out.)

 

[flowerbug]

IF you read the literature that comes with these packages, they tell you to weed the beds. I have 3 kinds of weeds in my wildflower bed, fortunately ALL has shallow roots. One of the extra "weeds" is turnip greens, that have taken over many of my beds. THEY.ARE.WELCOME!!

i think the most useful thing to do with the mixes is to try to isolate groups of seeds and get them going in pots so you can figure out what they look like and how they grow and get them established before transplanting later - especially in the case of perennials that might have deeper taproots and take a few years to get established.

no matter what i've tried in some cases nothing works and i have to move on and try other plants that are more tolerant of our conditions and benign neglect or other things.

i try to grow turnips and radishes each year to give the animals more flowers with bigger seeds to munch on. the deer sometimes will graze them down to almost nothing and then it's a matter of a few survivors carrying on the tradition. i also like them for their yellow flowers.

 

[digitS']

More Volunteers!




Why they ended up here, I have no idea. Yes, there were snapdragons in 2023 (there's a volunteer poppy in behind them). The snaps were on the other side of the house. None survived the winter but there's one seedling trying to bloom out there in '24. It is in an impossible location – under the climbing rose. The two in the picture look like they were planted there but, I assure you, they were not. How they arrived near that mess of tomatoes and melon vines, I don't know. Homemade compost was moved around the vegetables but the snapdragons were already making their start for the season.

BTW. These deep red snaps (I think Potomac), and no other colors, volunteered in an old flower garden two years after the property was sold and we were no longer using that ground. They finally disappeared.

 

[mikethegardener]

More Volunteers!


View attachment 67881

Why they ended up here, I have no idea. Yes, there were snapdragons in 2023 (there's a volunteer poppy in behind them). The snaps were on the other side of the house. None survived the winter but there's one seedling trying to bloom out there in '24. It is in an impossible location – under the climbing rose. The two in the picture look like they were planted there but, I assure you, they were not. How they arrived near that mess of tomatoes and melon vines, I don't know. Homemade compost was moved around the vegetables but the snapdragons were already making their start for the season.

BTW. These deep red snaps (I think Potomac), and no other colors, volunteered in an old flower garden two years after the property was sold and we were no longer using that ground. They finally disappeared.

Love the surprise volunteers! Those snapdragons are gorgeous, and it's amazing they showed up in a spot where you didn't plant them. The mystery of the garden, right? And wow, that's quite a story about the deep red snaps volunteering in the old flower garden years later.