The Helpful Gardener

A loaded cart at the greenhouse can put a serious dent in a tight budget.  Trying to
fill the flower borders for the summer parade is costly, whether using annuals or
perennials or both.  But there are other ways to color up the landscape…..free
plants!  Reseeding annuals or perennials, those plants that insist on shattering new
seed each fall to sprout next spring, promise to be a cheap alternative. 

Some gardeners may disagree with me about the weeding chores required by these
aggresive volunteers, but I find no difference between weeding a bed of henbit or
thinning the four o’clock seedlings.  In my garden I, as well as the hummingbirds,
count on the Lady In Red Salvia that is replenished each year by new plants no one
has paid for.  I have to thin them out to a suitable spacing, giving each plant room
to establish and thrive.  Other volunteers are larkspur, rose moss, and cleome.
Morning glories will gladly spark up a fence or trellis with no invitation at all.
Perennials also do their part in filling the border.  Catmint, heliopsis, flax and
rudbeckia promise a future filled with color.

But there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  Control next season’s
blessings by deadheading at least half of this summer’s crop to reduce seeding or
spread a preemergent such as Preen to control new sprouts.

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