Gardeners Are Swapping High-Maintenance Bedding Plants for Self-Seeding Beauties – To Let the Garden Plant Itself
Create a naturalistic backyard with minimal effort using these magical self-seeding plants
Creating a yard full of easy color year after year needn't be hard work. It can be as easy as finding a few self seeders to replace all your high-effort bedding plants, then allowing nature to take the lead. There's something truly magical about plants that seed themselves. I sowed a pack of annual love-in-a-mist about 10 years ago, and I still have them. They've roamed far and wide, their brilliant blue lighting up gravel paths, raised beds and that original sunny border.
I’ve put together a round-up of some of my favorite plants that, along with love-in-a-mist, will reward you with easygoing color year after year, a selection of self-seeding plants that will quietly fill your yard with very little input from you. I've chosen them for their ease, their color and their ability to thrive in varying degrees of sun and shade. They'll give you all you need to let go of that expensive bedding and embrace a more naturalistic style of gardening that you and your local pollinators will love.
Don't forget wildflower seed mixes, like these from True Leaf Market, which can be a great way to mix things up and see what grows best in your soil and aspect. Also try the Seed Shaker collections from Botanical Interests – there are all kinds of brilliant regional mixes to choose from.
1. Foxgloves
Biennial foxgloves (Digitalis) are great self seeders. And they're a useful option for dappled shade, where their stately spires will flower from late spring into summer, in soft shades of white, peach and pink.
I began with a handful in a shaded bed a few years ago, and they’ve gradually inched their way into sunnier areas of my yard, finding their way into pots as well as borders. They're content with my heavy clay soil too, which is a bonus.
If I'm not happy with where they've self-seeded, I carefully grub them out and replant them before they get too big, either in autumn or early spring, into gaps at the back of my borders or into little pots to give to friends.
Learning how to grow foxgloves is simple. They're the perfect plant for natural drifts with striking vertical interest – and the bees adore those nectar-packed funnel-shaped flowers.
Hardiness: USDA zones: 4–9.
Find foxglove seeds at True Leaf Market
2. Lady's mantle
Another self seeder that makes me extremely happy is Alchemilla mollis, or lady’s mantle. It’s a gorgeous herbaceous perennial and totally fuss-free, thriving in sun, semi-shade, in heavy clay soil and even dry areas: that's pretty much all you need to learn how to grow lady's mantle.
In spring it clumps up, its downy foliage fanning out to pretty scalloped forms. After rain or heavy dew, jewels of water collect on the leaves like mercury drops. In early summer flower rosettes of deep yellow shoot upwards to create a foam of lime green above those handsome leaves. In my opinion it’s one of the best edging plants you can invest in.
Again, the seedlings appear all over, but they particularly like my gravelled areas as well as cracks between paving. They're simple to transplant if you want to move them around. I find a weeder tool like this one from Lowes handy when easing out seedlings from crevices.
Hardiness: USDA 3-8
3. Forget-Me-Nots
Then there are the forget-me-nots (Myosotis), which create a fabulous low-growing haze of blue and pink in spring, just when you you're craving some color. Technically short-lived perennials or biennials, they behave more like annuals in most climates. But that's not a problem since they self seed so readily.
They're so obliging too. I adore them intermingled with pots of daffodils, tulips or grape hyacinths, which is exactly where they like to germinate and take root in my backyard, whether that's in full sun or dappled shade.
There really is nothing prettier when the garden begins to wake up in April, and they're one of the best spring planter ideas. Once they begin to look a bit worse for wear, usually in early summer, I just pull them out, knowing plenty more will return next year.
Hardiness: USDA zones 3–9.
Shop forget-me-nots at Botanical Interests
4. Verbena bonariensis
Verbena bonariensis is a perennial I can't get enough of. One of the best plants for an airy privacy screen, creating semi-transparent veiling in a sunny spot in the backyard, it thrives in full sun and sharply drained soil.
It's tall, easily growing to around 4ft (1.5m), yet it never dominates, as its elegantly branched stems are so slim. In fact it always amazes me how it manages to stay upright, its vivid purple flowers swaying obligingly in the breeze.
I've not found Verbena bonariensis to be a troublesome self seeder in any way, but it's easy to fork out if you find it popping up in unwelcome spots. It doesn't transplant easily, however, so catch the seedlings when they're very small for the best chance of success.
Hardiness: USDA 4 – 9 (depending on variety)
You can buy Verbena bonariensis seeds at Burpee
5. Mexican Feather Grass
Recently renamed as Nassella tenuissima, I'm more used to its old scientific name of Stipa tenuissima. Either way this perennial is a happy self seeder in the ornamental grasses category.
Growing to around 2ft (60cm), it's a really easygoing and beautiful grass that won't dominate or take over – more here on how to grow ornamental grasses.
It's a brilliant filler for pots in full sun, where it knits together flowering perennials with ease and elegance, creating a gentle haze of buff-coloured flowerheads from midsummer. It's drought tolerant too.
The little seedlings appear in early spring, in gaps between paving, in gravel and in pots. I don't get many in my borders as the soil's heavy clay and they prefer a sharply drained growing medium. However, if I replant them at the front of borders after digging in a few trowelfuls of horticultural grit, they tend to do just fine.
Hardiness: USDA 6-10
Buy Stipa tenuissima seeds at True Leaf Market
6. Annual Poppies
To turn a hot, dry, inhospitable patch of garden into a fairytale oasis of color, it's hard to beat annual poppies. I've sown packs of seed here and there over the years and now have them popping up all over the place, but they do prefer it super sunny with dry, poor soil. Perfect for those tricky spots where little else grows.
The best self-seeding poppy varieties are corn/field poppies (Papaver rhoeas), the classic bright red wildflower, one of the most beautiful annual poppies, which will soon make itself at home in a meadow setting or a sun-soaked border.
Then there's Californian poppy (Eschscholzia californica), in shades of orange, yellow, red, pink and white; and breadseed poppies (Papaver somniferum) with their ruffled petals and handsome blue-green foliage, which are one of the best plants for seedheads too.
As with all self seeders, leave the seedheads to dry naturally if you want them to spread. If you like you can collect the seeds from the seedpods and store them (I have a neat little seed storage organizer like this one from Amazon). Then you can sow them elsewhere in spring (just remember you don't need to cover them with earth: scatter and leave them like that).
A pair of small garden snippers – the Fiskars Pruning Scissor from Amazon are a good buy – are helpful for collecting seedheads
Shop the range of poppy seeds at Burpee
7. Greater Quaking Grass
This absolute gem of an ornamental grass (scientific name Briza maxima) looks oh-so-delicate, but it is in fact one tough customer.
I was given a plant by a neighbor around five years ago. I popped it in a pot and I've had heaps of it ever since. If your neighbors are less generous, just throw a few seeds of greater quaking grass onto the soil in full sun – any time from spring to fall – and it's like a sprinkling of fairy dust.
Soon you'll have a knee-high plants, the arching stems finishing in rustling silvery green flowers that tremble in the breeze. It really is a winner for creating a whimsical garden full of magic.
It makes lovely light ground cover and it's a pretty, airy filler plant for containers too. I do have one word of warning though: they self-seed like crazy, so be vigilant and hoe out anything unwanted in early spring.
Buy Briza maxima seeds at True Leaf Market
What to Shop
This seed shaker has a mix of flowers hummingbirds love, many of which are self-seeding. Simply sprinkle the seeds in your yard.
Use these seed packets to collect seeds and store them for planting next year. You get 120 packets in this set.
Use this liquid fertilizer to give your plants a boost of essential plant nutrients and support flowering.
The art of self-seeding plants is very cottagey in style; a looser, more relaxed alternative to traditional bedding plants, in both containers and in borders.
The right self-seeders will save you money and do much of the work for you, quietly filling gaps in your planting and returning year after year for a repeat performance. The resulting semi-organised chaos can be very pleasing indeed.
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