Making my orchard pretty, need seeds for shorter plants

Thanks to all who responded to my previous thread looking for self-sowing annuals! Our back yard is going to be a butterfly magnet next summer!

What I'm looking for now are shorter plants for the orchard area, something to add to the mix of white clover and "volunteers" we had last year. Why grow grass when you can have flowers, right? The plants need to be shorter because I want to be able to see the baby dwarf fruit trees we planted. Last year, we had tall cosmos in some spots, and the trees were, well, dwarfed!

I'd like self-sowing annuals or perennials, preferably ones that I can direct sow or winter sow in zone 6. They definitely have to be under 18-20 inches tall, and shorter would be better, or my DH will threaten to mow them....

I still have 'Lemon Gem' signet marigold & 'Balsam Impatiens' to offer in trade. Please check my trade list for tomatoes, birdhouse gourds, etc. Let me know what you're looking for; I might have something else to share. I wish my list were longer, but I'm new at this.

Thanks!

*bump* to put it above the double posting I just closed
don't want people to think I no longer need seeds for the orchard area!

Did you ever get any short plants Jill????? LOL

Thanks for the bump, Mark!

Actually, I've found several things through trades over the last couple of years that are doing really well for me, and I'll be wintersowing seeds for more of the same... I'm currently working on killing off the grass (and pretty much everything else along with it, unfortunately) that got out of hand in the orchard, as it was just taking over from the other volunteers that I liked... (I hope I've really killed that awful tall Johnson Grass this time!) With luck, I'll be able to sow or plant some swathes of more desirable things there this spring!

This is one of my first threads after subscribing to DG, so I'd like to let folks know that my official trade list is sadly out of date... I'm getting my trade packets made up, and I do have a number of varieties of seeds to offer this year, but I haven't started a new seed trading thread yet, just responded to people who were looking for things.

But if you have seeds for "shorter plants" or zinnia seeds, please let me know... and I'll see if I can tempt you into trading! :-)

Mark, thanks for bumping this up - when Jill first posted this, my seed saving/ trading powers were not as developed as they have become after a year participating in Sheran's seed swaps - can't recommend any better tutorial, armed with the DG tutorial on saving and trading seed (which I can't find - does anyone have the link?)

Hi Jill - those seeds from NARGS you picked out have arrived. I'll let you know when the 2nd round starts. Have you looked into any of those wild flower mixtures with low plants? I don't remember exactly where I saw them. I can add to your envie a few self-sowers that stay low and can take orchard competition (will add a few taller, just in case, on your say-so).

1) I allow a Siberian forgetmenot (original seed came from Park's Seed as Anchusa myosotidiflora, but PlantFiles has something different under this name) to self-sow around my garden that can become a major invasive if you let it, but I love it because it -
a) it makes an incredible low (8") sheet of blue for about 6 weeks from April into late May,
b) has low, evergreen tufts all winter (it's biennial - leaves the first year, flowers the 2nd)
c) can take the darkest, dryest places

the down sides are:

a) At the end of May, that incredible sheet of blue turns into a Gothic horror of black mush. By that time, when I yank the offenders, they have happily self-sowed for the next cycle. I let the seeds fall on the inside of some of the darkest paths and between flagstones among holly, hazel and hellebore.

b) Those evergreen tufts park themselves anywhere and everywhere - so anything else you want to grow needs to be weeded on account of this so aptly named forgetmenot.

c) No place is not to its liking.

So, having been warned, would you like some for your orchard?

2) Papaver rhoeas - 12-18" - trades - 1 red and 1 mixed (I've been looking for other realms of the poppy palette)

3) Prunella vulgaris (Self-Heal) - 6-12"; z4a-9b; sun - partial shade; purple; blooms repeatedly from spring - fall; bees, butterflies, birds
from 8/13/06 walk in local meadow

4) Viola labradorica
Harv 06 garden

5) Viola odorata (pink) (has been blooming for a few weeks now - blooms in warm spells from Nov - April)
06 Harv (parent seed from Sorgina)

6) Viola tricolor - cream, pale lavender to blues and black purple shades - variable face patterns - no yellow
Harv 06 garden

--------------------------
perhaps too tall for you? -

7) The next one is taller than you want, and definitely an invasive. But, a large colony of it near an abandoned ruin in a local park is so beautiful and fragrant, that it breaks my heart every June: Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis). I saved seed last summer...

8) Better behaved, but perhaps too tall, too is Lunaria annua. It makes luxurious, fragrant, purple domes in April, before most flowers are up and about. I let it self-sow through variegated vinca in a path beside a yew hedge.

9) Saponaria officinalis from 06 walk
z5a-10b, 18-24"; sun to partial shade, aggressive, poisonous, herb garden, fragrant, attracts butterflies, deer resistant, soap lather ( http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/weeds/plants/soapwort.htm )
Associate with: (Stephen Lacey, The Startling Jungle p36-37 key meadowsweet for cedarnest) blue lobelia, thalictrum, orange daylilies, blue delphiniumm etc,

Jill, you don't have to have something I want right now - We've swapped so much already I forget who owed whom what, and I know we'll meet again in balmier times this coming summer.

Wow, thanks Karen... I'll Dmail you!

:-)

Jill, I will have to look and see what I have that meets your criteria...LOL I am sure I can come up with something that you would like. Orchard...is that a little shady then?

I found that link to the DG Trading Primer for Seeds and Plants: http://davesgarden.com/trading/primer/

Never mind why it was such a challenge to find something so essential to DG that it is plastered right on the "front door" as you come in to Dave's Garden - there are times an army of bloodhounds wouldn't do me any good grr.

Please don't plant Dame's Rocket.

Nature groups in Michigan even have field trips where they pull up Dame's Rocket.

We ask everyone if they have Dame's Rocket and don't want to get rid of it, Please do not let it go to seed.

Ok, enough preaching for this morning. ;o)
sharon

Sharon, you're right... I got a packet of seed a couple years ago, then read about it and decided against sowing.

Janet, the orchard is half-grown dwarf trees and should definitely be considered full sun... eventually, there might be a little partial shade under the trees, but that's a good way down the road! Hey, did you want tomato seeds and so forth? I thought I remembered you posting about that... did I Dmail you, or did I get interrupted and not send that note out?