I am new to gardening and want to create a native garden full of wildflowers in my 2 small garden beds.
My question is — how do I fill in the garden beds? Do I keep planting more and disregard the spacing suggested on the labels? Do I try sowing more seeds?
For background, I have started adding perennials like cone flowers, tickseed, black eyed susans. I added a few hydrangeas to match the already established hydrangea in the yard.
I tried sowing cone flowers seeds and black eyed susan seeds in the bed in mid April (i am zone 6b) and nothing happened.
It seems like I am going to have to spend a lot to achieve the look I want. This new hobby is expensive. 😅 Any suggestions?
by waves_and_water
8 Comments
Some seeds (the ones you tried specifically) need cold stratification aka exposure to cold for about 60 days before they will germinate. To achieve this with the least amount of effort, it is best to winter sow seeds in zone 6. You can also simulate it with a fridge and grow them indoors until it’s appropriate to plant them outside for a more successful but more time consuming effort.
https://www.prairiemoon.com/how-to-germinate-native-seeds.html
I definitely have over planted my space and ignored all spacing guidelines. Next year will be the real tell as it’s year 3, but this year it looks full and great
It takes time, but double or triple the depth of your planting bed. And then add more plants.
I would say the spacing is more for a formal look, so better for the individual plants. You can plant closer together, but may end up with more of a boxing match between plants, with winners and losers. Just know that the first year is always going to look sparse, as the natives take the first year to really establish, then flourish in year 2 or 3.
You can def plant closer together with natives, it will give you a more natural looking garden and help keep the weeds at bay. From a cost perspective you can try ‘winter sowing’, or look on Marketplace for folks who have grown a bunch of native seedlings and sell them pretty inexpensively, or are even giving them away as they divide and pull (this is better for early spring or fall). Also look for licensed ‘backyard nurseries’ – they will usually have some pretty good prices and are good nurserymen.
https://preview.redd.it/lw0fxk421q4f1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f469aba3c7eaf61b4a2919569c88a1ad16487e74
Enjoy the sparse “traditional” garden look the first couple years. That is what almost everyone outside of this sub prefer a garden to look like anyway–hell, I like it to. But if you have at least one truly **wild** flower, it will cover **all** the remaining space in short order when it reaches its prime (often year 3 but some earlier/later). For instance red columbine or penstimon digitalis or blackeyed susan would fill the remaining space (and even push a few mild-mannered flowers out if left unchecked).
Right up against a fence that like means limited airflow – you can try overplanting soft-stemmed perennials, but they’ll be more prone to pathogens (not necessarily a death sentence, but something to be aware of). Woody shrubs definitely should not get crowded, as contact can lead to rot.
Gardening is more of an ongoing experiment rather than a finished product. Lush gardens you see on the internet/around the neighborhood are a flash in time, made by people who have a lot of experience and put in a lot of work (and money). Take it slow before you throw your wallet at it. Gardens usually take a couple years to establish and really take off – plants initially put a lot of their energy into root growth.
Here’s a good resource: [https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/plantfinder/plantfindersearch.aspx](https://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/plantfinder/plantfindersearch.aspx) They have a lot of useful info, even if you don’t live in Missouri.
I had good luck with starting black eyed Susan’s and coreopsis inside my first year and transplanting, then they were able to establish with self seeding.