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If you want to grow a flower garden next year, fall is for collecting seeds.
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Did you know you can start perennials from seed? Here are a few plants that will bring so much color to a garden of any size, all for just a few dollars!
They say fall is for planting, and that may be true when it comes to new trees and shrubs. However, if you want to grow a flower garden next year, fall is for collecting seeds. Now is the time to hunt for spent flowers loaded with seeds. In just a few minutes, you'll find enough to fill your garden with blooms, and you might be surprised how easy it is to start some plants from seed.
Starting perennials from seed
We know annuals grow well from seed. Plants like sunflowers (and most garden veggies) only take a few weeks to go from seed to flower. They're famous for starting from seed. But did you know you can grow perennials from seed, too? Plants that cost $10 to $30 at a local nursery can be grown for free, if you have a few seeds and a little bit of patience.
What's a perennial? Perennials are hardy plants that go dormant for part of the year. Although they seemingly disappear, these plants are full of life underground and grow back bigger and better than ever after resting for a few months. Dinner-plate Hibiscus, echinacea (cone flowers), black-eye Susan shrubs, Montauk daisy, asters and even mums are all popular perennials in our gardens.
Easy perennials from seed
Some perennials are incredibly easy to start from seed. Black-eye Susan (rudbeckia) and coneflowers (echinacea) will usually self-seed all over your garden. However, most of our native perennials need to undergo cold stratification. A fancy phrase that simply means, they need to experience a few weeks of cold weather. This clever adaptation keeps plants from sprouting during warm autumn weather, which otherwise wouldn't give them enough time to grow before winter.
If you'd like to grow these seeds you should collect them and keep them outside in containers over the winter for the best success. However, we spoke to Planter Joey, a gardener famous for his tips and tricks on Instagram. He says even seeds from plants like yarrow, which are said to require cold weather stratification, will sprout without it.
How long does it take to bloom?
This was the most shocking thing about touring Planter Joey's Garden for me: Perennials can flower from seed the same year they sprout! I expected perennials like black-eyed Susan to spend the first year focusing on root growth so they'd be able to survive the winter, but our growing season is long enough for even 1-year-old plants to produce some flowers. Those flowers, of course, will get better and better than ever.
How to grow a HUGE flower garden for a few dollars
One of the biggest reasons people avoid planting flowers from seed is because they want blooms as soon as possible. It's true you do have to wait a little longer to get blooms from perennials if you start them from seed, but the wait isn't as long as you'd think and the money savings are hard to ignore.
If you want a lot of flowers quickly, plant annuals from seed in between your perennials. Annuals like cosmos, marigold, sunflowers and zinnia will flower a few weeks after the seeds are planted and will give you the color you deserve while your perennials are filling in. Plus, annuals re-seed - so even if you don't collect the seeds, you'll still see them pop up the following year if you don't remove the plants after our first frost or deadhead the spent flowers.
Happy gardening!
