Choose Plants That Reseed Themselves for Years of Blooms
For years of blooms with little work, choose plants that reseed themselves! Here’s a list of 20 annual and perennial flowers that are self-sowing. As you are busy deadheading your flowers, take a closer look at the seed heads you are cutting off. Toward late summer, allow some of the seed heads ripen until they turn brown and split open.
Your Self-Seeding Garden
The seed heads of plants are like salt shakers full of tiny seeds. When the capsules split open, scatter the seeds anywhere you would like them to grow or just let them drop where they are. Next spring, keep a sharp eye out for the seedlings when weeding. Some may be slow to emerge. If there are more than you want you don’t have to keep them all. Thin them out to allow enough space for the plants to fully develop. Relocate the extras or pot them up to share with friends.
Don’t be surprised if nothing germinates in the fall. Some seeds just don’t like hot soil and others, such as poppies, need a cold period before they will sprout. This is called “vernalization.” Wait until spring to look for your seedlings.
If you live in a warm region, some of your scattered seeds—the ones that don’t mind the heat and don’t need a cold period—may sprout and grow during a mild winter. They will flower early and set more seeds, giving you several generations a year.
Open-pollinated and heirloom flowers will look like the parent plant, while hybrids usually don’t stay true to their parents’ form. Keep an eye out for “sports”—chance seedlings that display attractive traits not found in the parent plant. These genetic mutations can lead to some interesting new forms of old favorites!
This maroon Belamcanda was a pleasant surprise. All the others were orange! We will definitely save the seeds from this sport.
Self seeders will give your garden a natural, cottage garden look but some of them can become nuisances, crowding out more desirable plants. Be prepared to thin them out or move them to other spots around your yard.
Self-Sowing Annual Flowers
Here are some annuals that are willing self-sowers:
Colorful calendula are eager to self-sow. Bees and butterflies love them!
- calendula
- nigella (love-in-a-mist)
- love-lies-bleeding
- poppies
- cleome
- alyssum
- verbena
- bachelor buttons
- portulaca
- coreopsis
Self-Sowing Biennials
Biennials rely on self sowing to keep the population going. They form a leafy plant in year 1 and will blossom in year 2:
- foxglove
- lunaria
- forget-me-nots
- hollyhocks
These foxglove seeds are ripe and ready to fall.
Self-Sowing Perennial Flowers
Many perennials will self-seed if not deadheaded:
Columbine seeds are ready to be shaken out wherever you want them to grow.
Save a little money on plants next spring by welcoming some volunteers to your garden.
Also, learn how to save seeds from flowers and vegetables for replanting!
Getting Started with Flower Gardening
Building a Raised Flower Bed Garden
Choosing Flowers
Types of Flower Gardens
Flower Gardening for Pollinators
Growing Flowers in Containers
Spring and Fall Bulbs
Caring for Flowers
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I've had great success with snapdragons self sowing. I have a patch that comes up every year without fail.
I am surprised that you didn’t include zinnias and gaillardia in your list of self seeding annuals. These two cultivars do well and reseed well here in Florida. Maybe they don’t do so well further north.
Hi. I am inundated with gophers and my oak trees have grown to the point of blocking most of the sun in my gardens. Is there anything that I can grow to feed my bees but not the gophers? I live between San Antonio and Houston.
Hi, Pat, Most pollinators, including bees, are drawn or lured to flowers, and most plants that produce flowers do so in some amount of sunlight, whether full or partial or the like. It sounds like you need to prune or trim your oak trees to let in some sunlight.
As for the gophers, we have a few ideas:
• If deer and gophers are a problem in your garden, confuse them with lavender. Grow plants among the roses to muddy the flowers’ aroma, which attracts deer. When planting rose bushes, throw a handful of dried, crushed lavender into the planting hole to thwart gophers.
• You can place natural deterrents around your property to repel gophers. Plants with strong smells such as sage, daffodils, iris, thyme, and geranium will repel them, for example, as will placing fish oil, peppermint oil, coffee grounds, or tabasco sauce on the ground near gopher tunnels. Remember, though, you need sunlight for those plants to thrive.
• You can also install underground fencing: To protect existing plantings, bury hardware cloth or ½- to ¾-inch mesh wire at least 2 feet deep with an additional 6 inches of mesh or wire bent at a 90-degree angle away from the planting. This will help keep gophers from digging around the fencing boundary. Also, extend the fencing at least 1 foot aboveground to deter gophers moving overland. Use galvanized or stainless steel wire to extend the life of the fencing.
• And you can trap or bait.
Start by bringing in some sun, and keep this in mind: If your property borders wildlands, vacant lots, or other areas that serve as a source of gophers, you can expect gophers to reinvade regularly.
We wish we had better news, too.
I’ve had flowering tobacco self sow. They germinate late summer on my Zone 5 garden so I have to be careful not to cultivate where they are, to allow them to develop. The sunny edge of the garden is a good place where they will not be disturbed. They flower in mid- to late Autumn, when almost everything else has gone by. If started early indoors, they would develop and flower sooner, but I like this kind of “October surprise.”
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