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Garden Volunteers or Self Seeding Annuals

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Garden volunteers is an actual term meaning flowers that seed on their own.

Garden Volunteers Spread Joy

I love the term garden volunteers…I always picture a little army marching through the annual bed, gleefully volunteering themselves as seeds for next years’ plants. Garden volunteers are self-seeding plants, usually annuals. They pop up everywhere. For beginning gardeners or lazy gardeners, or simply people who need to cover a large area with flowers, they are an answer to our prayers.

Some Garden Plants that Re-Seed

Last year I bought two 10 cent seed packets at Family Dollar, a discount store in Farmville, Virginia. It contained 30 Bachelor’s Button seeds, one package of all blue and the other a mixed package of blue, pink and purple. I directly sowed the seeds into the soil in the perennial bed next to the driveway in early May and promptly forgot about them. The conditions are tough in that area of the garden: hard clay soil with lots of rocks, a fairly steep slope, and hot sun most of the day.

The results? Beautiful clusters of flowers last year…and this year…garden volunteers!

Self-Sowing Plants

Along with the coreopsis, the Bachelor’s Buttons did a great job self-sowing throughout the garden, so much so that I’ve had to move many of the seedlings.

Not bad for spending only twenty cents!

Here’s a list of what self-seeded in my garden this year:

  • Bachelor’s Buttons (Centaurea cyanus)
  • Alyssum (Lobelia maritima) – this self-seeded during the growing season, so much so that I was picking plants out of the walkway. It’s too early yet to know if it will come back this spring.
  • Cosmos: I had a free package of cosmos seeds from a company trying to get my business. I threw them in the ground without a thought. Soon I had a massive stand of 3-foot tall pink and purple flowering cosmos on frilly greens. Unfortunately, a strong wind during a thunderstorm smashed them right over and uprooted them, and I could not get them to grow again. They did leave behind seeds, which are now sprouting right where they fell. Amazing! This year I have the same seed packet (that company just won’t stop trying to get my business) and another of orange, red and yellow. I will place supports for these tall gems.

I’ve read a lot about other flowers that will self-seed, but these are the annual that volunteered for another tour of duty in the Seven Oaks flower garden. Garden volunteers made it easy for my garden to look great. Yours can, too.

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  2. Jeanne

    Thanks for stopping by! Actually, garden volunteer is really a term mostly used for self seeding annuals (but sometimes perennials). I didn’t coin it, although I wish I did!

    Enjoy!

  3. Colleen Wms

    I’ll need to keep those suggested volunteer producers in mind. I too love those volunteers. Guess I’m lazy 😉 I do wish they’d help me with the weeding but that’s another story!

    I love the basic johnny jump ups so my kids have something they can pick all they want to give away. I also have a lot of cedar tree volunteers that I keep trying to transplant with only a small amount of success.

    I have let way too many weeds grow, thinning they were volunteers that I am now just pulling most everything I’m not positive I put in. However, I do not have nearly the acreage that you do.

    I look forward to perusing your blog! This blotanical is cool! I’m from north central NJ, here in VA for almost 6 years now so a transplant like yourself.

  4. Jeanne

    Hey Colleen, nice to hear from you. Thanks for stopping by. I don’t have good luck with Johnny Jump Ups here – what is your secret? Pansies do better for me. Not sure why, since they are so similar. Hmmn. What part of VA are you in? Hope to get to your blog too! Have a beautiful day!