Bought our first house in October, winter devastated our Central Florida shrubs. I went to the nursery for the first time ever, bought some wildflower and zinnia seeds and thought if I sprinkled them around, I would maybe get a few blooms for the bees, but…. Every single seed sprouted. I’m asking if I should start ripping these out now? Or ride the wave and see what happens?? The arboricolas and ti plants are finally regenerating and I just want all the plants to be happy.
by TurbulentIce1917
42 Comments
Give it a couple more weeks and see what is growing best. Pick a couple of handfuls of the smallest seedlings and that should be enough to let the flowers weed out the rest.
They should be fine; however, the overcrowding may lead to smaller / stunted blooms. You could thin out some. If you’re careful with the thinning, just transplant the picked seedlings elsewhere 🙂
They’ll fight it out for survival. They know what theyre doing
MAN, but that’s some good looking dirt, though!
Let them grow and blossom. I have a natural garden and I only dead head when I can. It’s gonna be so cool.
https://preview.redd.it/ip3dy809tytg1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac7bf2bba664b0849117ea5da4c3a6e1598eb63b
I did the same thing with zinnias and wildflowers and they’re doing fine. I have several spots in my yard I did this, an have had decent success.
LET IT RIDE! We just deadhead ours to the dirt. They’ll duke it out. You’ll get some small ones that will grow sideways and creep through. You’ll have zinnia for a lifetime now!
What exactly are you worried may happen? That they’ll interfere with the original shrubs returning, that the flowers will crowd and damage each other, that it’ll look bad, or something else? Personally, like the crowded wildflower look, and they usually do great.
They will do it for you. If you wanted to you could but in my experience mine did just fine.
Next time. Mix the seeds with sand first. You will have more material and it will be easier to spread. But this is also fine. They will re-seed them selfs. Will look fine the 3th year 😉
I wound up carefully digging up some denser hunks of zinnia seedlings and putting them in other spots to share the wealth. Unfortunately the deer found all the spots but you can relocate some seedlings right now if you want. Or pot a few for a friend, etc
Just you wait, it will be beautiful
More is better, just leave it
Hi! I’ve got my own patch that looks the same. Squirrels, neighborhood cats, and birds help thin things out at times, its ok to let it do its thing!
I love a good survival of the fittest competition
Survival of the fittest 😉 let them work it out. If some start to shadow others later on in the game, maybe I would move the ones that are going to be taller or bushier. But for now I would just let them establish themselves abit first then go from there.
I did this with poppies and it was a bad time. I did it with my snapdragons; they’re thriving. However, these aren’t poppies! I think you’ll be fine.
How’d your Ti plants do? I live in N Houston, which is pretty much like W JAX, so we get a few freezes. I’m curious if the ti plants bounced back, maybe I can get these in the ground
It’s like thunderdome, but plants. The strong will survive. Do check any unusual varieties you notice and use a plant app to see if it’s invasive for your area. Not a wildflower mixes are created equal.
I did this last year and it was a beautiful chaos garden. I loved it.
Let the strong survive! I love these types of gardens 😍
I have hope that it will still be cute. Zinnias kinda grow tall and long. 🙂
I grow hundreds of zinnias every year to use as my filler plants, for bouquets and for the garden and for donating to the parade. They do really well 1.5 – 2″ apart. They will grow together into a full bush that way. You will get some wildflower seedlings popping up but more of a variety will sprout up next year. Most of those look like they will be zinnias, they will be long but kinda wide leaves that are rounded points, two on opposite sides and will rise up shooting two side by side leaves. They are easy to identify after you get to know them.
Trust me when I tell you to cut them after the second set of true leaves but after the third set is fine too, it will increase your flower yield and it helps give them a better shape. It’s hard to bring yourself to actually do that your first time but it’s worth it. If you live in an area that gets high winds, you definitely should prune them after the second set of true leaves so they get a more low and sturdy profile. I learned that one the hard way. Unpruned zinnias may survive the first part portion of the windy season but they will bend, snap, and die in those same high winds when they get taller on a single stalk. It’s harder to get over all of your flowers on the ground after a storm your first year than it is to bring yourself to prune them for the first time.
I suggest you thin the zinnias out from around the other seedlings and you can even move some to the front of the bed to front empty spots or tucked into any remaining spot in your garden. They don’t seem to mind being picked and poked transplanted around at this stage, their growth will just pause (about 5 days) as they get over transplant shock and get settled in. Just make sure to keep up with the light watering if you transplant things around.
Give a 3″ ring around any seedling that isn’t a zinnia, most likely that would end up being Coreopsis, black eye Susan, or a bachelor button. Typical wildflower mixes usually have a lot more of those and they do pretty well germinating without needing a cold stratification. Poppy is usually in the mixes too but those might wait a year to several years to actually show up for you. They like a few weeks of cold winter first and the first winter may not be enough. I suggest you learn what the seedlings look like for the variety in your mix so you don’t end up pulling them up as a weed in years to come when they decide to show up. I accidentally did that to half my poppies when they showed up 3 years later.
Leave alone…the Strong will survive and the weak shall die 🤷
The zinnia will absolutely grow and thrive like this. They love being alive.
The only consideration is that I personally struggled with getting mold/rot near the bases with dense planting. Depending on the air flow in your garden, this might now be a problem for you. So I’d let it grow and see what happens
Ride it out to the end of the season. The strong will take care of the weak.
Why not? Just let them propagate
I am strongly of the opinion that nature works itself out. Let them go
Ride the wave and feed the bees.
If you decide to thin and you’re worried about disrupting neighboring seedlings, I use a small scissors to cut “heads” off in those cases.
I have an area next to my vegetable garden where I do this to attract pollinators. Just watch for blooms and snip them at their prime – bring them in the house and put little vases in the kitchen and bathrooms. It will both help them re-bloom and bring sunshine into your house.
I let this ride one year and got super tall flowers, they were kinda cool. I’ve had to pull out some cosmos in subsequent years to give other seeds a shot but it let me get to know them and put on a big show
I was able to carefully thin out my zinnias and replant them at this stage. Mine are still closer together than recommended but I have tons of cheery blooms
I dub this “renegade gardening” at my house. Beautiful chaos. It will look awesome when it’s full and busy with life.
This is how I do it. The stronger ones will grow and it will be lush and gorgeous once they bloom. I always tend to overseed and never have issues.
We did this as well.
Let it ride and see what you get! We had some really surprising things pop up, some faster and taller, some shorter, it all worked really well.
You should read about the self thinning rule, which predicts natural thinning of same aged plants in nature. If you plot the density of plants, it generally decreases on a curve with a slope of -3/2 on a log-log plot of plant weight vs plant density.
TLDR you can thin if you want, but nature will take over in a predictable way if you don’t
Honestly, I’d just let them grow. It’s going to look awesome.
It’ll look great!
I’d let them ride. That’s the beauty of zinnias and wildflowers— they are essentially no maintenance.
We did this and it was awesome. Let it grow.
Don’t give up! I did this with zinnias last year and it was amazing!! Dog approved!!
https://preview.redd.it/a43nkyp95ztg1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4231809ea04b4aca6550322913f5d8f8a30ac3ff