A very common question we get is: “will my flower come back year after year?” The answer to this question, however, really depends on the species of flower you are planting.

First, let’s clarify exactly what reseeding is. Reseeding plants are those that sow themselves and come back to your garden in the subsequent year with very little help from the gardener. If you do not mow your plants down too far and you allow them to reseed themselves, many varieties will return for many years.

Here are a few great flowers that reseed:

Foxglove – This flower is native to western and South Western Europe, Western and Central Asia, and Northwestern Africa. The scientific name means “finger-like” and refers to the ease with which a flower can be fitted over a human fingertip. The flowers are produced on a tall spike, are tubular, and vary in color, from purple to pink, white, and yellow. The foxglove is a large showy plant that looks best grouped together as a backdrop to your other plants and flowers.

Hollyhock – This flower is native to Southwest and Central Asia. They are biennial or short-lived perennial plants growing from 4-8 feet tall, with broad, rounded leaves and numerous flowers. Hollyhock grows best in full sun and will reseed every year.

Larkspur – This flower is a part of the buttercup family. Larkspur blooms cover a wide range of colors from white, blue and red to pink and violet. The blooms are irregularly shaped and tend to group together along the upper end of the stalk.

California poppy – The California poppy is native to the grassy and open areas of the western United States, especially throughout California. This upright and compact annual or tender perennial is extremely drought tolerant and is ideal for arid environments. The California poppy comes in many colors, has cup-shaped flowers which are 2-4 inches in diameter, and are born individually on long stalks.

Cosmos – This flower comes in about 20 different species of annual and perennial plants but probably the two most common species is Cosmos bipinnatus and Cosmos sulphureus. This bipinnatus species has leaves that are finely cut in threadlike segments with foliage that looks similar to ferns. The blooms come in various shades of pink to dark rose. The sulphureus species are long with narrow lobes and range in color from yellow and orange to red and white.

Are you ready and excited about growing reseeding flowers yet? We would like to suggest our grower-direct online store where you can buy inexpensive, high quality, self-seeding flower seeds.

What is the best way to promote reseeding?

Flowers should be allowed to stand for at least two weeks after they have finished blooming. After that you may run a mower over the bed at a height of four to six inches, which should allow the stands to remain intact. Observe caution when mowing that you do not cut the flowers below three inches tall, as that will often cause irreparable damage to many perennial varieties. You may find that the stems and foliage of the flowers are tall and dense enough that, depending on your plantings, you will be forced to cut the bed more than once in order to effectively chop up all of the material.

Mowing the plants will disperse the seeds and create competition that will help your bed by forcing out weed populations for some time. It will also open up the stands to allow more sunlight to reach the newer seeds on the ground, effectively aiding the natural process of germination. Be sure when you mow not to bag the cut material; the natural mulch created through mowing will provide cover for the ground soil throughout the dormant season, aiding in erosion control, building up soil nutrients and preventing the infestation of your flowerbed by weed populations.

If you purchase and seed a plant species that is an exotically introduced variety, or a select domesticated variety, it may not naturally reseed itself well enough to re-establish. Such varieties will require a manual replant if you wish to enjoy having them around every year.

Storing Seed

A lot of people work hard to run the figures and determine exactly how much seed they will need to populate the area that they are working on with the desired plants. While this is a healthy practice, we also believe the theory that more is better when it comes to sowing seed. Seeding rates are general guidelines that may differ slightly, and even drastically at times, based on the variants of each individual location they are used for. The best tool available to gardeners and farmers alike is experience. Next to that the USDA provides a very helpful zoning map that identifies different climate zones and helps guide people towards the best time to plant in their specific region of the United States. Keeping some seed stored in reserve in case you find out that you planted to early, did not water quite enough, or were unable to keep the fall leaves off of the seed bed, will help you to achieve the ultimate outcome.

Here are some quick tips for storing your seeds:

1. Moisture and heat kills the viability of the seed. If you are harvesting the seed from your own flowers, use newspaper to clean off as much chaff and leaf foliage as possible from the seeds. Then lay the seed out on a paper towel to dry.
2. Store unused seed in a sealed, water resistant container such as a zip-lock baggie, a glass jar, a plastic bag or a paper bag.
3. Insert a packet of desiccant, silica gel or even processed rice to remove any moisture before the container is sealed.

Causes for poor survival results:

1. Burying seed too deep in the soil
2. Not providing enough water for the flowers
3. Poor soil drainage
4. Unpredictable, extreme weather conditions
5. Impatience
6. Not using a high enough seeding rate
7. Inadequate amounts of sunlight exposure
8. Poor nutrient quality in ground soil
9. Planting varieties during the wrong season
10. Mixing top soil with existing soil and drawing up weed seeds