Self Seeding Garden

Happy_Sloth

My front/back garden are filled with a lot of self seeding plants undispersed by a few core perennials and shrubs.   This was how the garden was setup with i arrived and not being much of a gardener i've tried to maintain it. 

However i suspect I'm over weeding some of the plants out of the garden, the space between plants increasing and the numbers of the core plants is dwindling. I'm not sure if the problem is that the self seeders arn't 'seeding well enough, or if i'm weeding out the seedlings by accident.  Truthfully i suspect it's a little bit of both. 

I tried to ease back on the weeding early in the year to give things time to establish hoping if i let things grow i'd be able to tell the difference between the weeds and ones i wanted to keep but i just ended up with a mess of dandilions. 

I don't really have alot of money to invest in lots of new plants, how should i go about making sure the plants i have seed well for next year?

I have 1 little marigold i'm very worried about it appears i've weeded it down to a single plant   it's got 2 flowers on it now and 1 flower that's gone to seed.  It's such a pretty bright orange variety i don't want to lose,  as i haven't seen any like it in the shops.   I know it's an annual,  it's parent was one of a couple i had last year but 3 years ago there where dozens.  

All the self seeders seem to be going the same way    I've tried collecting poppy and fox glove seeds at the end of the season and sprinkling them back into the borders but it didn't really seem to help. 

I even bought a couple of new variety's of poppy last year to add to the borders but not one of the new sort of poppy has shown it's face so i really dont know where i'm going wrong. 

Farway

Foxgloves are biannual, so they'd only be tiny slug bite size in the first year, which is where most of them go, you may have noticed there are millions in on seed pod? That's why

Poppies are the very devil, they need disturbed ground to germinate but can survive yonks in the ground, think WW1 or corn fields. Your poppies will turn up in 2056 I expect

Your marigold, are you able to sow seeds in pots? Or mark where you sow them with a stick so you know the area to avoid

theoretica

If you really like a plant it is worth gathering some of the seeds and saving it to start some seedlings off in trays and baby them next year - you get a much higher percentage of plants to seed for many than just casting the seeds in the garden or letting them do their own things.

twopenny

I've accidentally removed seedlings myself, the worst case being Agapanthus that take 7 yrs to reach blooming size. Hoed off in a second after 3 years cultivation

Do you have some very fat birds around your garden? They will eat seeds that are on top of the soil and even just under. If you are broadcasting packets of seed they are having a feast.

I'd suggest pick a nice day when the seed heads are ripe and shedding then gently shake them onto the soil and turn over the top to cover most of them. Sat on a cushion, glass of lemonade and zone out.

Or you could lay some netting around the seeding areas until you get more established.

goldfinches

Then there is looking around your local area and anywhere you regularly visit to spot plants you'd like to - ahem - "harvest" later in the year.
Friends, neighbours and family, if they're at all like me, will have a drawer full of seed packets that they never got round to growing for various reasons and would probably be glad to pass on any you fancy to be scattered around. They may also have some self sown seedlings they would be glad to thin out and pass on too. 
My tactic with seeds I've never grown before is to put a few in a pot and label them so that I have a reference to identify seedlings from.

-taff

Instead of weeding when there are seedlings, why not let them grow until you can identify what they are first? There's not much that can't be eradicated when grown [ only things like bindweed, which is completely recognisable when it's got two or three leaves] and you might find you actually like some of them. I moved some orange hawkweed to the front garden from the back because I liked the flowers. Dig out dandelions, and of the thistle type ones, or just really the ones you don't want when you can identify what they actually are..

25_Years_On

I've relied a lot on self seeders in my garden. Aqueligia is one of the best self seeders and easy to recognise as a seedling. This year I have my best ever display. A bit of disturbance is great for many of these. Since I put in some standard probably native primroses they have spread really well and besides getting a great display I have to dig up loads which I put in pots and later into other peoples gardens. Foxgloves and evening primroses are good as well although numbers vary quite a lot. I let the forget-me-nots go wild (woodland derived type which are far better than the arable weed version). Poppies are great but don't last long but I've now got some of the perennial yellow poppy in from next doors garden. It's great but needs a bit of weeding control.

Slinky

We've been in our house 2 years and took out a lot of overgrown shrubs last year. We brought some cream poppies with us from our previous house and planted them last year. They took a while to establish but there were seedlings coming up in the Autumn, so I moved some of them around. Imagine my surprise this year when they started flowering bright orange! The orange ones are quite popular in local gardens, there must have been some seeds lurking under the old shrubs that have come to life.  There are some cream ones too. I now need to move the orange ones to a more suitable location and encourage the cream ones as they appear.  The foliage is idential so it's a bit of a lottery until they come into flower.

wort

If anyone has any hardy geraniums, they can give you a piece of, just ask anyone you see gardening, they spread easily, and flower year after year, lots of colours .

twopenny

Love in the Mist is a good one. I've collected seeds from some that have escaped a garden and growing in the wall but packet ones are more reliable.

Candytuft also. Easy.

Hardy Geraniums come from underground as well as seed especially the pink one that flowers all summer if you cut it right back to ground level when it gets straggly around June.Great space filler.

I've also aquired seed for Pot Marigolds from peoples gardens - with permission - and once you get them growing they look after themselves.

I currently have Pansies self seeded. The small ones are incorrigable and very pretty. When I dead head I throw them on the ground

Campanula once it's going is great ground cover and bees love it. Cut right down as it goes to seed getting straggly and it will spring up fresh

Violets I get everywhere, a dark purple with purple underside to the leaves

Snapdragons are a good one and bloom all summer

Lupins provide reliable seed.

Falafels

-taff said:

Instead of weeding when there are seedlings, why not let them grow until you can identify what they are first? There's not much that can't be eradicated when grown [ only things like bindweed, which is completely recognisable when it's got two or three leaves] and you might find you actually like some of them. I moved some orange hawkweed to the front garden from the back because I liked the flowers. Dig out dandelions, and of the thistle type ones, or just really the ones you don't want when you can identify what they actually are..

I couldn't agree more.

I can recognise all the common weeds when they're youngsters, so if something's coming up which isn't familiar, I let it grow and declare itself. And then there are the welcome visitors who turn up unannounced. I've had some gorgeous stuff over the years... spiked speedwell, chionodoxa self-seeding in the gravel, perennial cornflowers, nicotiana sylvestris, pendulous sedge (bit of a thug, that one!), ferns, roses, violets and a self-seeded cotoneaster whose flowers probably fed all the bees for a three mile radius!