Wildflower seeds

My first season of gardening in the foothills above Denver has been a mixed bag, as expected! My successes have been zinnia, cosmos, dianthus, trumpet vine (though the darn thing didn't flower), johnny-jump-ups,...mostly easy things. Failures were portulaca (elk snacked them right down to the ground), potentilla (these were established but I think the wet weather drowned them), geraniums in the window boxes (I think I planted them too deep), etc etc.

But the wildflowers in some of the flower bed are just incredible, and they're all setting seed now. My question is, what's the best way to propagate the wild columbine, skullcap, phlox, flax, around my yard? Should I harvest the seed, and broadcast it before the snow flies? Should I scratch up the soil a bit before doing that? I know some of the seeds would scatter and establish naturally, but I was just wondering if I could help it out a bit, and get even more wildflowers next year.

Thanks in advance!

Nele I think those all will propogate like gangbusters but if you are worried yes harvest some seed and direct sow in the fall. Note that my columbines have all broadcasted their seed now. I usually scritch the ground and press the seed into the ground with my foot (sorry sounds like seed abuse) as it's windy in my garden. Please keep us posted on how things work out.

Yes, do!

DN, no, I think the seeds actually like that.

Nele, I am with the same kindsa questions, having only moved here last September. I found many WF seeds I tried to sow via the "scatter" method and also the "seedball" method did not even begin to germinate, and I believe it was simple lack of moisture at important times. As the tiny few who did germinate were in a place where they were both undisturbed and got a bit of water.

I had fabulous success with the wintersowing method, however, with wildflower mixes and specifics both, and those actually became major elements in my first time garden here.

Good luck!

Just today I noted a couple new Columbines coming up that I didn't plant. :) I didn't do anything except try to keep the existing plants happy. I also have Aster volunteers. Last Fall I collected seeds and scatterted them over my back fence. No Asters over the fence, just in my yard.

How fun, Dave. I love it when they do that. ;-)

My columbines reseed like crazy, but they reseed in the area where their parent plants were. Some years they do better than others. Oddly, this was a rather wet year compared to the two previous ones and they didn't seed as well. I don't get it. Also, a few move to other beds via the birds perhaps? Certainly not any of my doing. I rather like having columbines do what they please.
In the past, I would grow most of those plants from seed, but I haven't for the last few years because, I don't have much prepared space for plants. Mostly I just plant things from the nursery the last few years.
I am not entirely sure what winter sowing is, but I gather it is planting things in little plastic greenhouses made of old gallon milk bottles and clam shell packs from the grocery store. I have done something similar not knowing that it had a name. I find some things germinate better on their own, but not necessarily in flower beds where they are meant to stay. Some of the things that I find germinate best out of doors are parsley, chervil, lettuce and especially escarole. Also mache, Japanese red mustard and oddly enough holy basil.
Most of these are plants that like to germinate in cool weather and like some freezing and thawing to crack their hulls. Obviously columbines are in that department as well. It is difficult to freeze and thaw enough in a home refrigerator/freezer and nature provides the right conditions.
Other things work better if one doesn't plant them until the last freeze is over -- morning glories being a good example.
But I don't do much seeding any more because I don't have room for the number of plants produced by even 1/2 packet of seeds.

Along the same lines, we have quite a few wild irises here. Have any of you tried planting wild iris seeds? Did you winter sow, or should I just scatter seeds now? Any advice would be great!

Here is a great article on the iris missouriensis an how to grow it from seed -- towards the end of page 2. Interesting that iris missouriensis was once grown for the fiber in its leaves -- for rope making. It is my understanding that iris missouriensis is hard to transplant so growing from seed makes sense.

http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_irmi.pdf

Edited to add the link.

This message was edited Aug 20, 2009 9:48 AM

Thanks for the link, Paj! Wow, that is loaded with new info for me. Had no idea about the rope making or the history of this plant. We just always have them around, and I, again, have obviously taken them for granted. I've just never really given them a thought, but DH brought me home seed pods. Apparently, this gardening bug is infectious!

Gardening is infectious and iris virus is absolutely totally dangerous! I know. I have hundreds of iris and am involved in the American Iris Society, state, local and national. Watch out! It got me bad.