GARDEN OF WILDFLOWERS

I am starting a garden of wildflowers,(or trying to). any tips on how to arrange flowers so it looks like...well wildflowers? I don't know what ZONE I am in, I couldn't find any info on how to figure that out.( I live in Northern KY). Thank you for any input-GG

space them about....ummm... haha your name is GINA.

Hi Gina, my guess is you're in zone 6a, I used to live in Cincinnati and if I remember right it was 6a there and you're not too far away. As far as arranging things to look like wildflowers--I think the thing to do would be mix up all your seeds so that they come up kind of randomly--in a field of wildflowers you don't see all of one flower grouped together, then a group of another flower, they're more mixed together. Hope that helps!

Thanks... any input is greatly appreciated. I will send pix as soon as I can. Also thanks for the zone info. GINA

You can purchase packets of seed already mixed or purchase one of those "strips" with the seeds embedded in them. WalMart used to sell the strips.

This message was edited Jun 4, 2007 5:28 PM

We purchased a wildflower seed bucket, and my spouse poured two buckets of seed meant for 4,000 sq ft in a 60 sq ft area. One was an all climate mix, the other a shade mix. Lessons learned:

1.) Surival of the fittest. The first year, it really looks beautiful and random and hard to tell weeds from wildflowers, I liked that a grass was included it added to that "look" and it was ornamental being very shiny leaved.
Second year, most of our wildflower types didn't come back, in particular almost none of the shade mix or they had a scarce showing while other more more aggresive wildflowers came back in larger numbers, showing signs of a takeover. The grass survived rather well which I was happy, I did like the look of it.
Third year, survival of the fittest had proven true there were only about 3 wildflowers types now growing all competing for domination and hardly a sign of anything else, in particular that grass I liked showed signs of being the strongest, it grew up first, fastest, and spread the most and now I realized it's the one that's going to win the survival of the fittest and probably I'll be dealing with it all over my garden for many years to come.

2.) I tilled it all deciding to make it a normal flower bed opening up a can of worms, there was so much seed all the stuff started growing back. I scraped it with a weed hoe, left it for a couple weeks and scraped it again with a weed hoe. The grass proved to be extremely hardy, it was the only one that seemed to survive the scraping. I put paper down, and mulched heavily and that grass I'm STILL fighting. I've decided to just stick to pulling out about 4 dozen new grass a week and have been doing it for months and months and I honestly believe I'll be pulling it out for the rest of my years at this house probably.

I personally would recommend not doing a random wildflower garden so to speak, it's very hard to control the survival of the fittest process that way. Instead, make a "garden" of wildflowers like Echinacea, Black Eyed Susans, Joe Pye Weed, etc. and plan it out and mulch it. That'll help keep things in check, and the plants will have trouble spreading by seed which will keep things under control, if you notice one or the other doing especially well it'll be easy to just dig some of it out without too much effort.

This message was edited Jun 4, 2007 4:25 PM

Hi there, it is my experience that wild flower gardening is a wonderful thing to have, if done properly, it is quite time consumeing and not the case of just throwing the seed down and let it all go wild, you really want the poorest of soils, (like have you ever seen a gardener working in the wild flower meadows) once you have cleared the area of all the weeds you normaly have growing, you mix up your seeds, add some sand and remix, the sand makes it easier to scatter your seeds as already stated, some are really small, then you really just scatter it as you saw on old farm film, a hand full and throw away from yourself as you walk, also as said, some are really stronger growing than others and will take over, but you can always pull these out if too many and stop them chokeing everything else out, once the flowering season is finnished, you will see this by the colour fadeing and the seed heads evident, you then have to cut it all down, I use a strimmer, Scottish) I would say one of those cutters that have a nylon cutting line and whizzes round, anyway, you dont scalp it, just cut the growth down to about 3 inches and leave all the cut stuff laying on top, this contains your seeds for the next year, and it adds some green fertiliser to the ground at the same time, once this dead stuff is all dry, you can lift it and as you do, shake it as you will be scattering next years seeds about, then the same again every year, it is also a good idea to throw some seeds into a square shallow seed tray so you have some seed or stock plants going IF you should loose too many that you like, so it sure aint a case of just thowing your sedd and every year you have a wild flower garden, but it sure is a beautifull site, it will bring butterflies, bees and other flying insects to your area and garden that you never knew you would see, because they only go to certain wild flower plants, these will also help pollinate your proper plants for you, so good luck and hope it all works out for you, be best to select carefully which type of flowers you really like, as some mixes have a poorer mix, by the way, your librery should have books on wild flower gardening, it really is facinating to do. Good luck and happy days in your wild garden. WeeNel.

I would not recommend any box store or "bucket" wildflower mixes. Many of them are generic and not fitted to your area or soil. They may also contain invasive species like dame's rocket and queene anne's lace. Purchase seed mixes from an actual wildflower nursery. It will be more expensive, but worth it in the long run. I like Prairie Nursery. Prairie Moon is also really good. Species selection and site preparation is key. Any good wildflower nursery will have someone on hand you can talk to to recommend varieties for your area and what you want to accomplish. Go with clump forming grasses instead of rhizomatic ones, that will help avoid a situation like the other poster. Rhizomatic grasses are better suited for large areas or they will take over. Prairie dropseed is a nice meadow grass, so is little bluestem. Neither is very aggresive and they will spread slower. Baptisias are gorgeous meadow plants and don't spread to bad. There are more good natives than bad ones when it comes to spreading. IPenstemons and lupines are awesome too. Add some plants into your seeding for a jumpstart, especially with species that are slower to establish. That way they will be big enough to compete with more agressive plants from seed. I think Shooting Star Nursery is located in KY? They carry a wide range of natives. Good luck!! Native gardening is extremely enjoyable and rewarding!!!

Just a bit of warning about the "strips" of wild flowers. Yes they work, yes they will flower, and YES they are full of weeds! I spent more time clearing the weeds out of the strips that I put in a porch "windowbox" than I did in the entire rest of my garden. Stick to seed packets, you'll get a better mix.