Wildflower garden

A few years ago I bought a pound bag of wildflower seeds and threw them in neglected parts of my garden. I still neglect those parts of my garden, but the wildflowers keep coming back.

Strangely, guests to my house will always point to the weed and grass overgrown area dotted with colorful little flowers and say "I really like what you have done here!" And they are serious about it.

No matter how much we weed, primp, and fertilize our gardens, you just can't get that look and feeling that a natural flowering meadow gives to a person. So now when people ask me what to grow in a maintanence free garden, I say wildflowers. A good mix of 25 or so different species will bloom all year and re-seed. Weeds don't really matter. They supply a rich green background for dots of color (you can't tell which ones are the weeds anyway, so there isn't much point in trying to pull them up.)

You can sow in the fall after a frost has killed everything for really early spring flowers, or wait until spring thaw to scatter. The amount of seed scattered will determine the final size of the plants. I have "over-seeded" and found that it just made a daintier garden and still got attention from passers-bye.

When the season is over, mow to disperse the new seeds. That's about all the upkeep necessary. In Minnesota, we have wet enough springs that one shouldn't need to water a wildflower garden, and they handle drought fine once established.