Hello, fellow lovers of all things green.
The perennial rock garden is full of dry perennials remaining. It has nothing to do with being lazy or too busy tending to others’ gardens. Leaving seed heads on your dormant perennials over winter will encourage many plants to spread. Plus, it provides a habitat for beneficial insect larvae and food for wildlife.
Echinacea Seed Head
How to Encourage Self-Seeding
John from Bangor, PA, asked if there is a way to encourage self-seeding. Yes, there is! If you want to foster seedlings, don’t deadhead, don’t use Preen (a chemical pre-emergent that folks use to prevent weeds), and don’t mulch heavily (yay—another reason not to mulch).
Giving your seeds a hand self-seeding sounds like an oxymoron— a quirky word for an expression using words with opposite meanings. Doesn’t self-seeding mean no need to intervene? Nonetheless, I am all for helping good things along.
A self-seeded baby White Pine brings a smile as no mother tree is nearby.
While roaming the property, I found a baby White Pine without a mother pine nearby. I marveled at the find. The baby tree planted itself in the rock garden, where it would not live to be a big tree, so I will move the little guy come spring. It occurred to me that I’ve had pinecones as decorations in my window boxes that I gathered from the library parking lot, so a seed likely found its way into the garden. It’s much like when squirrels bury acorns and then forget to return, spreading Oak trees to new places.
I’ve found that self-seeding occurs best in soil with a loose or crumbly surface. To help self-seeding along, scratch the surface with a garden rake and broadcast seeds before the ground freezes, or lay the deadheads on the naked soil and let Mother Nature do her part. That’s my strategy. Call me lazy (smile).
Popular Self-Seeders to include in your garden
It’s fun to collect seeds and start plants come spring, but leave some if you don’t mind. There are oodles of flowers that produce seeds to tempt birds. A few popular ones include Asters, Black-eyed Susan, Coneflowers, Coreopsis, Cosmos, Daisies, Goldenrods, Marigolds, Sedums, Swamp Sunflowers (my fav!) and Zinnias.
Swamp sunflower, Helianthus angustifolius
During the growing season, deadheading spent blooms encourages new flowers as the plant will continue to push out blooms rather than put energy into making seeds. But as the season wraps up, let flowers go to seed to encourage self-seeding and drop the spent heads where you want more plants. It’s such fun! While some dormant plants are neither particularly good self-seeders nor considered interesting in the winter garden, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, plus there are hungry birds to feed and beneficial insects to protect.
Milkweed Seeds with silky feathers.
Self-Seeding Love
To close, I can’t help but reflect on Martin Luther King Jr. The holiday to celebrate his life is Monday, close to his January 15th birthday. This year, Martin Luther King Jr. Day lands on Inauguration Day, when the United States makes a transition of presidents while the world is in transition, some would say, turmoil.
I love Martin Luther King Jr.’s sentiment: “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”
So let’s do our part of self-seeding love even if we don’t agree with those elected to office, religious beliefs, or philosophies. We are here to live in peace, which is our innate nature.
The only constant in life is change. Positive changes come with feelings and actions of love, acceptance, kindness, and tolerance. Or we can change negatively by resenting, hating, and judging others. Hate perpetuates hate. Yes, tragic things are happening, such as wildfires, natural disasters, and wars that humankind engages in. However, if more of us seed love, our world will positively change as love grows exponentially. Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with you and me.
Garden Dilemmas? AskMaryStone@gmail.com and your favorite Podcast App.
There’s more to the story in the Garden Dilemmas Podcast, including Tips on Seed Catalog Shopping:
Related Posts and Podcasts you’ll enjoy:
Seeds Rooted in Love – Blog Post
Ep 114. We are all Seeds Rooted in Love
Coretta Scott King Forest – Blog Post
Ep 40. The Coretta Scott King Forest
“Let There Be Peace on Earth” is a song by Jill Jackson-Miller and Sy Miller in 1955.
