“The opportunistic nature of annuals is something that I enjoy, particularly when they find their way by self-seeding and letting you know, sometimes a little too eagerly, that they like you.”—Dan Pearson
May is a month of exuberance, with seedlings popping up throughout the garden. Many of them are unwanted weeds but there are a lot of annuals, biennials, and perennials that will sprout as well, providing the gardener with free plants. It takes years to get to recognize valuable plants from undesirable ones, but well worth the effort.
The first beneficial action is to stop being overly tidy when cleaning the garden in the spring. A light raking of leaves and dead plant matter opens the soil to the warming rays of the sun and seeds germinate. Sometimes I notice seedlings and remark to myself that they look as if they could be something valuable and decide to let them grow until I recognize the plants. The first leaves of a seedling are the cotyledons, the embryonic leaves, and often don’t resemble those of a mature plant, so time may make identification easier.
Many self-sown seeds show up where last year’s plant dropped them. But often they will have been distributed by the wind and rain, or birds and other creatures. This is when a true unexpected gift is received. Plants emerge nestled in the roots of a giant tree or against a stone wall or walkway. Crevasses are often the resting spot of a seed’s journey and a good spot to germinate. They lodge between established plants creating unintended combinations. If sprouting in an inappropriate they can be transplanted elsewhere.
“But though it is a happy gardener who finds young plants coming up just where they are wanted, it is a happier one still who finds them in unexpected spots where they look splendid nevertheless. Plants often have an uncanny ability to select their own best places to grow, and many beautiful effects from annual plants come quite on their own, giving the garden a valuable quality of spontaneity.”—Wayne Winterrowd
It is not only annual plants that reseed, biennials and perennials do as well. One our most charming spring ephemerals, Sanguinaria canadensis, or bloodroot, has an amazing method of traveling. As its seeds mature and fall they are gathered by ants and taken away to their nests where they feed on a fleshy organ called the elaisome and leave the viable seed to sprout. Bloodroot plants have appeared in my garden, I’m assuming by this method, and are cherished additions. Many of the small-flowered spring bulbs are prolific seeders. Snowdrops, Scilla siberica, Muscari armeniacum, Chionodoxa forbesii, and Puschkinia scilloides will all spread if seeds are left to mature and can create lawns and gardens full of spring blooms. The Scilla, or Siberian squill, has established a colony between the gnarled roots of a massive sugar maple that has lived on my hillside for a couple hundred years. The biennial forget-me-not, Myosotis sylvatica, will also seed prolifically if left to mature. Small mounds of rounded leaves like mouse ears (which is what the genus name refers) become covered with sky blue blooms. Patches of forget-me-nots scattered throughout a garden bed form a backdrop for larger plants.
There is a lot of self-sowing, or plants that are planted in such a way as to imitate self-sowing, so they knit the whole thing together.”—Fergus Garrett
The list of annual flowers and herbs that give us volunteers from last year’s seeds is long. Keep an eye out for poppies (opium, Shirley, California), bachelor buttons, dill, calendulas, larkspur, nigella, cosmos, cleome, and borage. The California poppy seedling has two slender tines; opium poppies have pointed oval leaves of soft green; nigella has lobed foliage. Remove anything that is a definite unwanted plant, but slow down and let the others grow. Pinch the little leaves and you might recognize the smell of dill or calendulas. Leave room for pleasant surprises. If leaving self-sowers where they pop up is too messy they can be put in their place by transplanting but they always do better where they have sprouted without disturbing the roots. Gardening is a messy affair; dirty hands and feet happen while working in the dirt. Accept a bit of chaos; leave a plant in the spot it chooses to grow; enjoy the randomness of nature; and rearrange if it doesn’t please. But a little untidiness can provide the garden with the richness and bounty of freely grown volunteers. A stand of pink opium poppies with celadon green leaves and feathery tall dill plants with chartreuse umbels was nothing I planted but it was a spectacular pairing. I left the seedlings and was so happy that I did.
“It isn’t that I don’t like disorder, but it has to be judiciously arranged.”—Vita Sackville-West
May 2023