Volunteers, You Brought to the Garden

[digitS']

When you leave your garden to new gardeners, what will they find growing there as volunteers? I mean, other than the weeds that are in every neighborhood. What will they find that they will associate with your gardening?

Maybe they will feel they need to eradicate them. Maybe they will appreciate them being there, even if at first, they don't know what those plants are. Do you have something kind of unusual to mark your time gardening on that ground and will be leaving behind, like reappearing footprints?

For me, in the veggie gardens:

• The orach which I hope they enjoy and of which I now have 2 varieties ... thanks to @ninnymary .
• The perilla, which I never found a use for but they are pretty plants and which don't appear to be invasive here altho they may be elsewhere.

In the ornamentals:

• The kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate.
• The jewels-of-opar, which I don't really remember planting but DW likes them and I bet I get blamed for it being around.

Steve

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

my last property i left behind lots of plants i wish i had time to take. i left 2 Reliance peach trees. a couple of young apple and pear trees too. some daylilies and hostas. but those didn't volunteer. i'm sure for volunteers they would have had kale, tomatoes, leeks and probably a few potatoes and squash i missed pulling.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

In the flower garden, I suppose the Mazus reptans is now probably a permanent fixture (after years of struggling so much I thought it would go extinct)

There might also be the matter of the crocuses (croci?) in the front lawn. Those were actually already there when my parents bought the house (in the 1930's sticking spring bulbs around your front lawn was pretty common) so I suppose they were already volunteers (either that or every person between them and us kept refreshing them). However, there are a lot fewer of them now than there were (I blame the gardeners, they start mowing before there is technically any grass to mow, so the bulbs never get a chance to make any leaves to refill their food reserves) so, in the absence of our attempts to replenish them, I honestly don't know if any would still be left should another family come in (as is I've had to make sure that my parents no longer toss out any mini-bulbs they may dig up as they dig the actual flower garden, we need every one in the ground.)

Over the property as a whole, I suppose the biggest (inadvertent) volunteer is the Senna obtusifolia, a byproduct of all of the sorted senna seed I have tossed out. I actually doesn't reproduce on it's own (we're a little too far north for the seedpods to ripen fully before winter freezes them) but senna seed is so hard and lasts so long in the ground that it basically comes back every year anyway in odd spots where we don't mow giving yellow flowers and bad smells (senna plants reek when you cut them).

 

[so lucky]

Hmmm....mint, bee balm, cardinal climber, grape hyacinths.

 

[Nyboy]

When I bought the country house depending on which neighbor you asked it was empty 10 to 15 years.It was the local lovers lane for teenagers. they broke in and even set it on fire. The house while set near road couldn't be seen from the over growth. Poison ivy covered the house, like English ivy in old European homes.After a year of cutting back and removing I had clear house and very small yard. After years of no care, peony, irises and lily of valley still survived. One day I will tell the story how after spending the whole day cutting down trees Mother Nature came to me at that house,

 

[Nyboy]

 

[Smart Red]

Since we purchased this property -- an old pig field -- along with the crop fields that made up 30 acres, almost everything other than aged burr oaks are reeking of our "fingerprints". I am hoping (and expecting) that our DS will take over the property when we can no longer manage it alone.

If that is the case, most of our gardening activities will remain with improvements. DIL prefers raised beds in the veggie garden. They both like the privacy and shade so I expect that will stay. I do know of families selling their prized homes to drive by later and see all their hard work torn out and replaced with lawn or asphalt.

 

[journey11]

I've got dill that has come back on its own for 5 years or so now. Ground cherries...will have them forever too. Anything else just depends what scraps I have tossed onto the garden for the chickens to compost. I had pumpkins, okra, tomatoes, peppers, poppies, zinnias and green beans that volunteered this year. Not all were permitted to stay though.

 

[digitS']

I had volunteer celosia surprising me in the garden this year. I hadn't realized that I left any blooms to go to seed. It's been out there a few previous years and I didn't notice any volunteers.

There is even one plant here at home, gracing a spot behind the chicken house. I didn't have any celosia here so I'm not sure how it found its way. The plant hasn't bloomed yet but I can't bring myself to pull it out.

That will be the key, you know. Whether it is the mother plant of generations of what amounts to an upscale pigweed will depend on volunteers maturing seed. I suspect it can ... it has that look.

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

I hope there would be Sweet Cicely, it's gently reseeding itself in my flower beds.
And the hops that isn't necessarily reseeding volunteers but must have some pretty healthy roots out there that are creeping out into the woods.
There's the accidental rhubarb that has been growing in the large long term compost out in the back 40. I always intend to adopt it into the proper garden but never seem to remember when the time is suitable.

The Jerusalem artichokes don't volunteer either, but they aren't going to go away on their own. Then there's the mint....