As winter progresses, we tend to dream of spring! We all enjoy looking for those plants that come back year after year and in a few months will be out looking for any sign of life. For now we must content ourselves with the endless packets of seed and can only dream what they may become. Enjoying annuals that will set their own seed and come back year after year have a special appeal, although they need a bit different culture than the other more regular “perennials.”
Self-seeding annuals are exactly what is needed in some areas in the garden. Not all annuals self-seed, but if the seed packet says “self-sows freely” or “hardy annual,” chances are that it will. Soil conditions and climate determine what will self-seed. For example, late-blooming annuals such as zinnias may not have time to set seed and mature prior to frost. Furthermore, not all annuals will grow true from seed or in other words, look exactly like their parents. To get exact replicas, you need open-pollinated or heirloom seed. If the annual in question is one of the many hybrids now available, the offspring revert to the original parent colours. In my garden, the mauves, blues and whites, of the original packet of bachelor buttons have almost entirely gone back to the “cornflower blue” of the original plant.
If I am planting new annuals in my garden I sometimes plant them after the first hard frost in late fall but more often don’t remember to plant them until spring, usually several weeks before the last frost date. It is obvious, but in order to self-seed, there must be seed. So don’t deadhead right up to frost. Mid-august usually allows enough time for the last flowers to set seed and mature. And while plants are designed to seed themselves, I sometimes shake poppy seed heads in new corners of the garden, or sprinkle a handful of bachelor button seed heads where colour is needed.
In spring, watch for the new seedlings poking their heads up from the ground. And watch that spade, because it is easy to wipe out the new flowers along with the ubiquitous weeds. However, you may also quickly discover there are far more seedlings than you want or they are about to strangle out a choice plant. The simple remedy is to thin them out. Choose the largest, sturdiest seedlings and remove the rest, sometimes transplanting to new chosen spots. It is easy to do with small seedlings — a trowel-full of dirt with the seedling in the middle and most of them don’t notice they’ve been moved.
Shirley poppies (Papaver rhoeas) self-seed profusely and they come in many shades of pink and red, singles and doubles. Calendula officinalis or pot marigolds have daisy shaped flowers of orange, rust, yellow, cream and apricot. They love sun and good drainage. Expect them to revert, over time, to simpler forms and fewer colours. Sunflowers will pop up in places you didn’t expect and sometimes leaving one or two in an unlikely spot creates a relaxing informality. California poppies (Eschscholzia californica), Johnny jump-ups (Viola cornuta), sweet William (Dianthus barbatus), coreopsis and love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) will all weave their way through your garden without consultation.
Self-seeding annuals are undemanding and reliable. The problem is that you have little idea and less control over where they will turn up. Depending on your point of view, they help to create an unfussy, relaxed, cottage garden with new surprises each spring. Or they create disaster that needs immediate help. If you ready to let go of some (or most) of the control in your garden, then welcome to the world of self-seeding annuals.
— Hanbidge is a horticulturist with the Saskatoon School of Horticulture and can be reached at 306-931-GROW(4769); by email at growyourfuture@gmail.com or check out our website at www.saskhort.com.
