"If dandelions were hard to grow, they would be most welcome on any lawn." ~Andrew Mason
Many years ago, I went on a tour of a place that the locals affectionately (or jealously) refer to as "the castle". I was absolutely shocked by the profuse display of perennials -- thousands of dollars worth! Planted en masse! It was nothing like my own garden, where I had one of this and one of that, scattered
here and there.
At that point, I realized just how many plants it takes to make a beautiful, lush garden. I also realized, unhappily, that my own garden would never look like that. I simply couldn't afford it! In spite of my crushed hopes, I continued to collect perennials whenever I had a few dollars to spare. Then something happened that forever changed the way I gardened. I discovered self-sowing annuals.
Don't ask me why I'd never tried them before. Maybe it's because I wanted to follow the advice in all those gardening books that extoll the virtues of perennials. Now, don't get me wrong. I love perennials! I can't imagine a garden without them. But when you want to cover lots of ground in a short amount of time on a skinny budget, there's nothing like self-sowing annuals.
Like perennials, self-sowing annuals come back every year, but from seeds instead of roots. But they're not as predictable as perennials. They seem to come up wherever they choose, sometimes in a distant part of the yard. Sometimes they come back in profusion, and sometimes not at all. If a perennial is like a faithful dog, then a self-sowng annual is like a finicky, independent cat. Maybe that's why I like them -- I'm a cat person. I like how my cat doesn't require too much attention, and I repect her independence.
But, as with all things in life, there are problems with independent cats -- I mean plants. It seems like they fall into one of two categories: (1) those that don't return reliably, especially in heavily mulched gardens, and (2) those that return in such force that they become a thinning nightmare. The unpredictability can drive a control freak insane!
How do you solve this dilemma? How about giving up the illusion of control? That's a real challenge for this gardener who uses a yard stick to measure distances whenever she plants anything. But I've found that it helps if I refer to my garden as "the cottage garden" instead of "the perennial border".
Now that the disadvantages of self-sowing annuals are out of the way, we can talk about the benefits. Here are four reasons why you should try self-sowing annuals:
1. They're cheap.
2. They fill in the gaps between perennials and make your garden look lush.
3. If you don't like them, you can pull them up before they go to seed.
4. Did I mention that they're cheap?
One of the most common questions that people ask me about self-sowing annuals is, "Why can't I just sow the seeds in the fall and have lots of flowers the following summer?"
Here's my reply: You can do that with some annuals (the so-called "hardy annuals"), but it doesn't work with everything. The more finicky ones (the "half-hardy annuals") need warm temperatures to germinate, and they are best sown indoors the first year, or sown outdoors after the last frost date in spring. The reason why they still manage to reseed in the garden is because each plant makes millions of seeds. Some of them are bound to survive the winter and bloom the following summer. But you're not getting millions of seeds in a packet, so please don't waste them by sowing them at the wrong time. Even some hardy annuals are best sown after the last frost date. It's always safest to follow the instructions on the packet.
That said, here's a list of annuals that self-sow in my zone 5 garden. I can't predict what they will do in your garden. But it won't hurt to give them a try!
Self-Sowing Annuals
