For a wild time, start now
Despite their name, there is nothing
”
wild
”
about the wildflowers grown in the garden.
For a wild time, start now
Despite their name, there is nothing “wild” about the wildflowers grown in the garden.
Instead, wildflowers have come in from the cold, so to speak, captured by commercial growers and fine-tuned for special colors and flower forms. The wildflower seeds we buy now for fall planting come from commercially grown flowers, most noteably in Central Oregon.
These seeds are carefully collected, packaged as single-seed packets such as California poppies or wildflower mixes and offered for planting in small beds and open meadows.
For your own private wildflower garden, sow the seeds when nature does: during October and November. The rains help wash the seeds into the soil where they happily overwinter, ready to bloom in spring.
With the first rays of warming spring sunshine, wildflower seeds have all three ingredients necessary to grow – heat, light, moisture. The feathery leaves of wildflowers can appear as early as January and it is not unusual to see golden California poppies blooming in February. With some watering, these poppies, which are the California state flower, can last into summer.
Although Mother Nature seems to handle wildflowers in the wild quite easily, it’s not always that easy in our own gardens. For starters, wildflowers cannot compete with weeds. That means sowing seeds in weed free areas, and then keeping after weeds as the wildflowers grow and bloom. If soil is hardpan or low in nutrients, the seeds will germinate but will stop growing when the plants get a couple of inches high.
The best bet is to enrich the soil by adding nutrients through just a little bit of compost before sowing the seeds. Work in the compost by lightly turning over the ground. Skip the fertilizer because fertilizer will cause the foliage to grow but cuts down on the number of flowers. Also wildflowers do not like “wet feet” and despise standing water.
So, how can your make your garden more friendly to wildflowers? They are home in gravelly, loose, well-drained soil that gets full sun during a good part of the day. They like a drink of water once in a while. But remember their roots run deep into the soil where the moisture is. This is how wildflowers survive when other flowers do not.
Reseeding is important if you want things to return. It may hurt your gardening heart, but it’s necessary to let the wildflowers dry out and go to seed. While this looks more like a weed patch than a flowerbed, be strong. Hold off pulling out the dead plants as long as you can to assure next spring’s cycle of flowers.
What about spring planting? Not a good idea, but not impossible either. The problem with spring planting is the need to keep the bed moist so the seeds will germinate and grow.
Standing in front of the seed rack at the garden center is the time for decision. California poppies or clarkia or wildflower mixes?
The hottest item is the Calilfornia poppy, says Steve Atwood, owner of the wildflower seed giant Clyde Robin Seed Co. Its bold color and reliable bloom make it a top choice. And, of course, there are California poppies hybridized to produce in other colors such as cream and red shades. “Last year we sold over 80,000 pounds of California poppy seeds,” Atwood says. “Compare that to a few thousand pounds combined of all the other varieties.”
Mixes are just as easy to grow as straight poppies, but they do represent several different challenges. The poppy is uniform, same height, same color. It is easy to identify and remove weeds within the poppy planting.
Mixtures come up at different times, with perennials blooming more the second year, Atwood says. They are different heights, which makes weed identification and removal more of a challenge. But the mixes also offer a variety of colors and textures. A mix will provide a longer blooming period because it can be blended to contain early bloomers as well as late bloomers. For instance, clarkia or farewell-to-spring comes on and blooms at the beginning of summer, then it is gone just as quickly as it came.
Keep in mind that it is illegal to pick these flowers growing in the wild. Wildflower seeds for the gardening market are grown and harvested on an assortment of flower farms. Clyde Robin, for example, has extensive poppy fields around Salem, Ore.
Wildflower seeds are available at garden centers in a variety of packaging. Individual varieties such as California poppies or Flander’s poppies or clarkia are sold in paper packets, and also in larger amounts in wildflower mixes such as Wildflowers in a Sack and Wildflower Meadow in a Can (or even a bucket for large spaces). Nearly all seed companies offer at least California poppies and some wildflower mixes.
