Everybody's garden oughta have at least one volunteer plant in it, else you aren't treating your intended guests well enough. Right? Those strangers in town know a good deal when they land in one, so right about now everybody should have seeds these garden squatters have produced in 2007.
Now some volunteers are just downright ornry and pesky, nuisances that nobody really wants to find in their plots of botanical loving care . . . but some are totally fascinating and others are downright gorgeous. What popped up in your garden this year that you loved? Would you like to share it?
How many folks would be interested in participating in a VOLUNTEER Seed Swap?
PLMK. . . . and ATBTY ! ~ ŁazŁo ;--)
CLOSED: just a wild idea, but . . .
What a fun idea LazLo, only about a week late for me, the yard is cleaned up. I had a volunteer roma tomato pop up late in the summer, my grandaughter eats them like grapes and must have thrown the stump end in the flower bed. It set little fruits but never ripened, just too cool now. It is in the compost heap.
This is a neat idea! I had some red salvia pop up in my driveway, but the frost already made it bite the dust! I did have some little white daisy looking flowers, but a lady came over and pulled everyone out of the driveway! I had a volunteer multiflora rose as well, but once I learned that was what I had, it went in the trash! Didn't even want to chance that one in the compost heap!
It is a fun idea! I had only one volunteer in two years, but I love this one a lot and am waiting for the seeds right now :)
I had so many "thorny careless" last year from a load of dirt I got hauled in. Now if I see one coming up it goes straight to the trash. I had a very pretty, airy looking plant growing in the shade garden, I let it grow and it had very pretty blooms. I thought I would keep it when I was pulling weeds since I had watched it all summer. Well, after it bloomed it started setting seeds, it had those triangular shaped stick tights that the dogs always come in with or worse yet they get all over our clothes & we have to pick them off. That plant didn't even get composted.
I also have numerous Cosmos, Yarrow, Cleome & Snow on the Mountain seedlings every year.
Sissy has, or had, Cosmos in her flower garden in her swing set box, and she just loved them! I had a multiflora rose that didn't make the compost either! Straight in the trash it went! Maybe one of the trash guys saved it from its destiny?!
It is a neat idea, but like someone mentioned above; start the thread earlier next year; I had some unknown tomatoes and as always many humming bird vine volunteers.
lol Lazlo, I like your wild ways :) The only volunteers I got this year were orange cosmos and some weeds with evil thorns all over them. They are impossible to pull out of the ground too-I hate them lol!
Speaking of wayward tomatoes, recently my son found a tomato seed on his taco wrapper from Taco Bell, and we planted it. It came up LMAO! No idea what it is but its about a foot tall. Probably will taste like cr@:P
Crazy fun idea, but I have all the volunteers I need..... most of them I call weeds! Not something useful like 'weed' but unwanted like 'weeds'!!! Have fun with this one, I will check back another time and see how many takers you can get on this one LazLo!!
I assume we'd share what we want to keep :) Those pesky visitors that I am trying to control are numerous and much more vigorous than the delightful surprises that are few and far between.
I got milkweed Asclepias tuberosa by chance after two successive failed attempts to grow it from seed. I know, that these are easy plants, but I managed to fail to get them started twice. I'll be happy to share the seeds, if they ever get ready. I missed one pod, the wind or kids took it first, but I have 2 more :)
How can I over winter Double Red Gernaniums without having to keep the whole HUGE thing inside? Please help me out here. If someone can help me with it, I will see about saving seeds so I will have something to trade! Thanks, Misty
From what I remember geraniums root very easily even in water. You can take cuttings and root them. That's what my mom does.But they'll need lots of light to look good indoors.
Thanks! I planted all but one, and then some that had broken off. I did up 3 vases full of cuttings! I was wondering if it is ok to cut them back for the winter so that they don't turn into a bush inside the house? LOL I do have some I am giving away already, but I am keeping 3 for myself. :)
misty, I've cut geraniums back and stored them hanging in plastic grocery bags in the closet dry all winter. Sometimes I've read they need a light misting to keep from over drying, but mine were fine without it. There was a bloom sticking out of the bag of one when I brought it out in spring!
Lazlo, I like the idea of a volunteer plant swap, or maybe we should say, self seeding annual seed swap, to get the idea of weeds out of mind, lol. I love the way those plants just show up in unexpected places. I've one or two little violas show up each year, but nothing like the wads of johnny jump ups some people get. I'd like to try collected seed from someones garden. I always have better luck with those than purchased seed.
I might just have to try that once the blooms are gone. They are just too pretty to put away right now. I will just live with the jungle in my kitchen! For now anyway. :)
In a sunny window they do put out blooms through winter, sooo nice when its dreary out.
My sunny window is all filled up with other things unfortunately. :) LOL
I found 2 nice size ajuga next to my garden today, on the edge of the grass. It had to come from seed from a neighbor, I don't have this anywhere. Isn't that cool? I carefully moved them to a safe place away from my husband's weed whacker.
(I apologize for my spelling, health problems have taken away much of my spelling and math skills.)
I created a new flower bed this last spring where none existed before. I put in a lot of bagged garden soil and got a ton of portulaca. Very pretty reddish orange variety, but all over that flower bed. No idea where the seeds are on them.
AuntAnn, In the middle of they spent flower is a little pointed tan colored knot. The little tiny silver seed is in there. They pop open and drop the seed so you have to be fast. They do not all dry up at the same time like some do so you must check them every day. Hope this helps. BEV
What a fun surprise that was!
Will get out and look tomorrow. Thank you for the info.
Anne
Well I started pulling them out until it got ahead of me and they began to bloom. I decided they were too pretty to be a nuisance. They didn't even mind standing around in water all summer like so many other of my things in that bed did. I'm going to have to tear it up and raise it as soon as the roses go dormant.
I find it easier to collect them by holding an envelope under the edge before touching the little pod so the seeds fall into the envelope instead of trying to collect them with your fingers, they are very tiny.
If I am not mistaken, some portulacas are edible. I never tried them though.
enya, you're right, I'd forgotten about a Mother Earth news article about the wild purslane being edible and good for you. Its a weed here.
I still have some Passion Flower (maypop) seeds left that I can throw in and also some Mullein seeds.