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AUGUST 5, 20)1
A recent walkabout in our garden revealed
an ongoing refrain, coming from my mouth to
a visiting friend: “I didn’t plant this.” “We didn’t
plant these.” “O h yes, they’re pretty, but we’ve
never planted them!” Hearing my own words, I
realized that as much as I plan or meticulously
plant coordinated vignettes, our garden—and
most of the gardens I love—are big, blousy
concoctions of old-fashioned perennials and
self-seeding biannuals and annuals. Think drifts
of love-in-a-mist, stands of foxgloves dotting a
country garden and you have both my garden
and the gardens in which I love to find myself.
A garden by chance? A garden as gifted by
birds and a breeze? Both of these, yes, but it’s
taken me a while to understand and see how
the self-seeders play with my carefully con
structed perennials and shrubs.
Self-seeders in a Portland area garden are easy
to grow: Those three words are core to their exis
tence. Easy to grow means tough, too: They have
to be in order to make it on their own, because
self-seeders aren’t deliberately planted by human
hands but instead follow a life cycle of germina
tion, growth, survival and seeding again with lit-
tle-to-no help from me. For those of us “lazy
gardeners,” doesn’t this sound ideal? But it also
means you can’t pull them out when they’re still
young and tiny, nor can you deadhead them, thus
preventing them from producing seeds and re
generating for the next season. It takes a little
different of a mind-set, but once you get the
hang of it, and are able to distinguish weeds
from seeds, you’ll be in the zone.
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them emerge every year is like visiting with the
friends who gave them to me.
S e e d By D esig n
Self-seeding plants in a
Portland area garden:
the sassy
An area of our front garden is filled in among
the plants with love-in-a-mist. This airy fringe
leaved plant has cornflower blue blossoms, fol
lowed by tiny balloon seed pods. I have never
once planted it, but it showed up thanks to birds
or a breeze who brought its seed from a neigh
boring garden. It seeds in rich soil between pe
rennials such as dahlia, lavender and euphorbia,
and along the front walk in areas I’ve struggled
to get other plants to grow. Early in spring I see
the sprouts everywhere, but once they reach
about an inch, I am able to identify them for
what they are— versus weeds I don’t want. This is
key to growing self-seeders: The big, blousy look
of a self-seeded cottage garden can easily morph
into a giant weed patch if you don’t carefully pull
the weeds from the seeds. It may take a few sea
sons, but keep an eye open to identify them and
your comfort and confidence in encouraging
self-seeders will grow right along with your pop
pies, upright verbena and love-in-a-mist.
A few things not to do when encouraging a
self-seeded garden include heavy hoeing or soil
turning in spring or the use of weed killer or
seed germination preventer. Doing these things
kills the weeds, but it also kills any seeds of the
a
Cerinthe is a
« star of the self-
) seeded garden.
Breadseed poppy Papaver somniferum
Columbine Aquilegia
Feverfew Tanacetum parthenium
Forget-me-not Myosotis
Foxglove Digitalis
Honeywort Cerinthe majorpurpurascens
Jupiter’s Beard Centranthus ruber
Love-in-a-m ist Nigella damascena
Nasturtium
Upright verbena Verbena bonariensis
Viola
plants you want to nurture. And no deadhead
ing or seed pod removal toward the end of their
Tales from Facebook:
life cycle. This seed production ensures they’ll
return to your garden in the coming year, so
I asked readers on the Sassy Gardener Face-
you’ll need a little patience and tolerance in let book page what self-seeders they grew, and the
ting them set seed. Here’s a hint, though: You response I didn’t expect to get was tomatoes. A
can always shake the seeds of a favorite self homegrown compost spread throughout the
seeder in areas o f the garden you’d like to en garden also spread tomato seeds— tomato
courage its growth in next season.
plants everywhere! Thanks to Grace, Jacquelyn,
Self-seeding gardens are full of gifts. A visi Jean and Sylvia for sharing their love of self-
tor to my garden often leaves with a poppy seed seeding plants. You can join the conversation
pod in the fall or, if visiting in the spring, a box at facebook.com/sassygardener. JK
of freshly dug prolific self-seeders such as ver
bena. We are always rich with plants in the L e A nn L ocher is an OSU Extension Master
self-seeding garden and it’s fun to share the Gardener and grows all kinds ofplants, including
wealth. In fact, it’s mçst likely how the majority weeds, in her North Portland garden. She’s really
of self-seeders in our garden began, and seeing hoping this summer turns out some ripe tomatoes.
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