Advice for Growing a Successful Wildflower Garden

by Jean
(Richmond, Virginia)

Wildflowers Beautify a Garden

Growing wildflowers can be a lot of fun. They’re incredibly beautiful and colorful, and if planned out carefully, they can compliment any garden. They’re also inexpensive to grow, so if for so reason they don’t bloom, you are not out a lot of money.

I was always fascinated with the acres of wildflowers that the highway departments planted on the medians of the roads in the southern states, particularly North and South Carolina. The flowers made driving on the boring interstates much more pleasant, as I always looked forward to seeing how they combined the colors and shapes during the different stretches of road.

I began planting wildflowers on a whim a few years ago when some bushes died, and I was left with a patch of yard that was bare. It was in a fairly sunny location, and I could have planted any number of replacement flowers or bushes, but I decided to try some wildflowers. Without knowing what I was doing, I bought several packages of mixed seeds and scattered them about, according to the directions. Unfortunately, I didn’t really prepare the soil that well, so when things started sprouting, I couldn’t tell if they were the flowers or weeds! Afraid of pulling out any flowers, I just let everything grow – weeds included – until I could differentiate between flowers and weeds. That first year yielded flowers, but it also yielded lots of weeds and grasses. So the following year I was very diligent about preparing the soil for wildflower cultivation.

My advice to those who want to grow wildflowers is to make sure the soil has been cultivated carefully and is free from any grass or weeds. You cam do this by watering the spot, waiting a week or so for anything to pop up, and then carefully pulling those weeds and grass particles out. Then your spot is ready for planting.

I take the wildflower seeds and mix them with a little sawdust. That makes them easy to scatter. The seeds are tiny and you don’t need to plant them individually. Scattering does just fine. You will also want to tamp them down so they don’t blow away.

Keep the wildflower garden well watered and within a week to ten days, you’ll start seeing germination activity. When the flowers start to get a few inches tall, you may want to thin out the patch. Remember to pick the wildflowers regularly for bouquets or bud vases. This will keep the garden fresh and flowering for the rest of the growing season.

Enjoy!