What's your favorite 'accidental' plant?

By accidental I mean one that appeared as if by magic....you didn't plant it, but now that it's there you just love it.
Mine would have to be a gorgeous clumpish collection of columbine, in a stunning array of colors.
Don't know where they can from, but just love having them now.

Marc

I have some rusty colored pansies that I suspect the birds brought to me. Last year I had a cucumber where no cucumber had been before lol.

:-) To funny.....thanks for sharing.

Marc

I like the sunflowers out by the birdfeeder. All colors and sizes courtesy of the messy birds.

Oh that's so nice....I always hoe up the seedlings around my feeders, as I didn;t want all the grasses and such growing up and going to seed, maybe I'll rethink that this year.

My feeder is at the back of the property between some short young lilacs. Sunflowers are welcome there --except those that keep popping up in the neighbor's yard. Oh well. He's a grouch anyway & always complains that I dig up "perfectly good grass" to waste on my flowerbeds. LOL

Never understood the love some people have with 'grass/lawns'....just don't get it.

This guy mows his little lawn on a rider in white tennis shoes and shorts with sharp creases. I can see he's taken back by my torn garden jeans & dirty hands when he sees me in my garden. I walk barefoot in the yard just to aggravate him. LOL Silly Man.

I dug up an area between the foundation of my house and the sidewalk. I transferred much of the sticky clay at the edge of the yard/woods. Low and behold a 4'oclock popped up within a few weeks. Beautiful blooms and foliage, plus I got some seeds to plant it elsewhere.

4 O'Clocks are a wonderful plant.....very easily reseeded. What a nice surprise for you.
They clay soil you moved, was it from an area that already had 4's in it?

I'm definitely with you on the lawn issue. Haven't had one since '92 and don't miss it a bit. And that gives sooo much more opportunity for accidentals to take hold.
For 3 years running, now, I've had what looks like a Cobaea that came from who knows where (obviously a bird, since it's in the middle of a cleared spot in the woods.) I'm going to have to try saving seeds from it, I guess, to propagate myself, since it refuses to propagate itself. The one plant does return every year; but I don't think it's really a Cobaea surviving winters in zone 6B! But I love it and I have yet to see it anywhere else except the pix I've searched to id it. The few neighbors I have on this mountain don't garden much, so I think it traveled a ways to get here.
I'm glad to hear your opinion on 4 O'clocks. I'm getting some in a trade. I read that they're good Jap. beetle repellents??? Even if not, they're certainly cute.

Are you talking the Mexican Cobaea vine, or the Penstamon cobaea?
Cobaea Vine: http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~patters/Polemons/Pages/cobaea.html
Penstamon Cobaea: http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantfinder/Plant.asp?code=L520

The vine. The flowers are just like the pix I've seen of the flowers on the vine, but the plant in my yard is a 30" upright plant, with a very thick stem and flowers that grow and open from bottom to top (the same as might happen with the vine, if it were a vine!) It's a mystery to me; maybe that's a big part of the appeal.
Like that Penstemon, though. I may have to get me one of those!

Hmmmm....you'll have to post pix this year when it grows in and blooms.

Yeah, I was just thinking I need to go paw through the ones in the basement because I'm sure I've taken plenty of pictures of it.

Oh yes please....I'm very curious now :-)

Well, here's the only pic I could find. After looking at it right after the cobaea pic with it's really long and wavy pistils, I'm not sure how I drew the parallel. Guess it was the only close thing I could find. Maybe you have a clue? I'd sure appreciate ID suggestions so I could get more.

Hmmmm....looks to me more like the penstamon than the vine. Try the ID forum, maybe one of the experts will know for sure. It's purdy whatever it is :-)

I didn't notice there is an ID forum. Thanks!

Sure :-D

Riker,

my husband James tells me that 4'oclocks were planted there YEARS (+8) ago. The seeds must have become buried under mulch and soil. I was amazed that they were still viable. I plucked fresh seeds from the plant which grew in the moved soil.

I'm excited about growing this plant in my new perennial garden.

Wow! They were just waiting for better growing conditions I guess. How cool!

Ok so this is off the subject BUT. My neighbor has 2 'accidental' fish that magically appeared in his outdoor fish pond. Bass looking/brim something or other. The neighborhood kids swear they didn't do it!

We think maybe a bird had some fish eggs stuck to it's foot?

Nicole

I love the way the pansies re-seed themselves in every which way. Even between concrete cracks!

My favorite surprises last season:
A purple lupine that shot up in the veggie garden
A Mullein - next to the fence (it grew huge!)
Tomatoes in two perennial beds (composting from the year before - oops, but had lots-o-tomatoes!)

P.S. - also love the four o'clocks! They re-seed right where they left off!

Oh Nicole too funny about the fish. Could have been eggs or actual fish the birds dropped in.
Sue, I too have had lupins show up unannounced, but that was years ago. Tomatos volunteer themselves freely in my yard, I blame/thank the birds for those. :-)
I am thrilled 4 0'clocks reseed so easily, as I forgot to save any seeds for myself this year.....I sent them all out in SASBEs and trades :-)

This message was edited Feb 3, 2005 1:39 PM

I still get tomatillos in my compost 2 years after the last intentional growing! (NOT a hot pile)

cool!

Under my American Holly tree I've been trying to get something to grow for years, but nothing except ivy would grow (and I didn't plant that). Then, about 3 years ago the birds gave me a gift of a little shrub about 2' tall with the cutest orange berries on it. It looks like miniature orange bush. Now I have three of them.

Is it Pyracantha?

I live in an apartment; thus have to buy potting soil from time to time because I love to give my friends plants I grow from seeds. Last year I bought a sack in a nursery that was more expensive than buying it from roadside sellers in rural areas, but that gave me the garantee it was not taken from wild areas (yeah...) eroding the soil. Several of my plants required a pot-upgrade, so I used the fresh soil.

Much to my surprise, during the second half of winter I discovered tiny Troaeolums growing in several pots, which made me aware I had paid three times more for soil that was stolen from wild areas as well.

My first thought was they would be Tropaeolum tricolorum, but one of them bloomed (they bloom the second year from seed) to let me know it was Tropaeolum brachyceras. The foliage of both Tropaeolum species is very, very similar if not the same. Here you can see the pictures: http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/82534/index.html

This one must have been a two year old tuber. I hope I will have more than just one T. brachyceras blooming next Spring (September on in our case).

Ursula

What a beautifu plant Ursula! I hate it was 'wild' soil but nice little bonus there! Goodness if that had happened to me I probably would have jerked it out as a weed!

:)

Oh pins how cool....isn't it nice when we actually like what is given as a surprise by 'nature' :-)

Marc

Ursula, did you mention the 'stolen' soil issue to the nursery? I'm glad you got something you liked as a bonus, but...................

Last summer, I had a whole row of Flamingo Celosia appear next to my fence. Apparently, birds had eaten the seed the previous year and then deposited it as they sat on the fence. Anyway, it was beautiful and looked like I had planted it there!

And most years, I will have volunteer sunflowers that will appear in the most unusual places, no doubt planted by the birds. I let them grown and then the birds "plant" them in another spot for the next year.

How wonderful!
I am so very pleased to see so many of you are like me in that you accept and enjoy the 'accidents' nature gives us in the garden and landscape. How fun is that?! :-)

Nicole, good you saw my posting, because the envelope I sent (SASBE for Rudbeckia Prairie Sun) you contains some Tropaeolum tricolorum seeds LOL. I'm glad you got acquainted with the type of foliage they develop, son you don't 'pull the weeds out' LOL.

Marc, I wrote 'stolen' because it is forbidden to take the rich soil from wild areas because people doing so have caused severe erosion. I bought it from a nursery thinking I was 'doing the right thing', but I was obviously buying soil that was illegally taken from wild areas (Tropaeolums are wild flowers here). This must have been over a year ago or so and I have not had the chance to go to that place again (some KM south of Santiago), nor did I keep the receipt that had their name and telephone number on it.

I'll tell you one thing: next time, if I'm not sure the soil a nursery offers is 'legal' I will not buy it. In such case I would rather buy it from poor rural people that most likely stole it as well (probably not even knowing they are doing something illegal) but desperately need the money to just survive. Of course, my very first choice will always be to buy LEGAL soil.

Ursula!

That is so awesome! Such a beautiful plant. Can you buy them anywhere?
It could have been volunteer seedlings in the soil Ursula- a bird could have pooped in their soil before it was packaged- maybe? lol

Let's see......... There are these plants that pop up around here- they grow low to the ground and have these almost orchid like blooms- (not orchids). They produce a bean pod- the flowers range from pink to yellow, white, red. I now save them from being lost in the gardens by potting them up!

I think it's some sort of wild pea vine or something. I'll get a picture when they start blooming. They make great hanging baskets!
Ohh that and the fuzzy pink puffball vine thing- it is tiny..um.. Sensetive Plant! Those are always welcome here, hehe. Unless you step on them barefoot.

one of my favorites....
I had these friends ya see... indoor hydro growers in upstate ny.
well anyhow, I guess they were throwing the seed and other assorted trash out the upstairs window.

Well one day we pulled up after going to town to get some stuff and noticed all the cute lil plants that were growing in the gutter.

certainly needed some weeding.

Hi Crimson!

The fact that there was also an at least two year old tuber in the soil (the one that bloomed for me) gives me the 99% certainty it was illegally obtained soil. The plantils (about 6) that grew from seeds only reached a few inches and then died back. The one I posted in the PF was approx. 3'.

I emptied one of the pots where one or two of these tiny little plantils appeared and very carefully screened the soil. I found two tiny (probably)tubers, that I would say could be less than one year old tubers from seeds. They were approximately the size/shape of rice (the 'round' type).

When I finished lifting my Freesia corms a couple weeks ago, I found 'something' of similar colour of Freesia cormils, but looking almost like a miniature asian apple (size of a sweet peat seed). My guess is that was a 1 1/2 year old Tropaeolum brachyceras tuber.

All three previously described tubers have now been sent to our DGardener 'goldenfish' in Japan. She will have to tell us if these were Tropaeolum brachyceras tubers or not (in which case I would owe her my end of our trade LOL).

I have not emptied the pot of the plant pictured in the PF nor do I want to do it, at least not untill after it blooms again in Spring (for us, September on). BTW, this plant only produced 3 seeds.

To my knowledge, there is only one nursery in Chile that is reproducing this lovely vine in Chile (Pumahuida nursery) but not selling it so far (they are reproducing Tropaeolum tricolorum http://davesgarden.com/pf/search.php?search_text=Tropaeolum+tricolorum and Tropaeolum azureum http://davesgarden.com/pf/search.php?search_text=Tropaeolum+azureum as well). There are still places in the wild where you can find them, but certainly not in the urban areas of Santiago (where I live or where the Pumahuida Nursery is located).

I would love to see a picture of the plant you mention.