Larkspur and poppies in spring. Blue and pink shades

Cosmos sensation in summer. Pinks and whites mostly. Toss in some rose campion for variety.

Plant pineapple sage in the spring for fall blooms. Combined with the pinks and white, it will really pop. It can take some shade. They get really big too.

For winter interest, tea olives are nice. They're large shrubs here. They have tiny white flowers that smell like apricots and just fill the air with their fragrance.

Other shrubs of interest, burning bush which is fiery red in fall, gardenias bloom in May/June, Always room for crape myrtles. Good grasses are the miscanthus varieties. Cosmopolitan is one that gets huge. It's got variegated leaves and spreads to about 5' wide with bloom stalks in the 6-10' range.

For black-eyed susans, figure 1 oz will cover 1361 sq ft - direct sown over prepared ground. (Based on seeding reco from Wildseed Farms).

WSing in containers is a nice way to do it if you have containers and time. The big advantage is the potential for better germination and the ability to plant in hunks into freshly prepared soil - and then hoe between hunks to keep weeds out. I'm glad I planted that way instead of going right in the first year with direct sowing and fighting grass and weed seedlings.

But direct sow would work. You could probably live with some grasses and weeds the first year, control the worst of them, save seed like a crazy lady, and then direct seed again the second year (preparing the soil again) with so much seed that no weed would have a chance.

For flowering shrubland - Butterfly bushes are great, especially when WSed and allowed to get a little size on them before planting out. Commerical seed is pricey for the seed counts, but that reflects the cost of cleaning out chaff. Seed with chaff is usually readily available from a lot of gardenweb seed savers.

Big flowering hardy hibiscus could also be nice - big visual impact for visitors and visible to you from a distance.

Oh shoot - I just had a few more ideas. Check your e-mail for a seeds seeds seeds offer. :)

Lynda

Here is a link that might be useful: Wildseed farms BES

For black-eyed susans, figure 1 oz will cover 1361 sq ft - direct sown over prepared ground. (Based on seeding reco from Wildseed Farms).

WSing in containers is a nice way to do it if you have containers and time. The big advantage is the potential for better germination and the ability to plant in hunks into freshly prepared soil - and then hoe between hunks to keep weeds out. I'm glad I planted that way instead of going right in the first year with direct sowing and fighting grass and weed seedlings.

But direct sow would work. You could probably live with some grasses and weeds the first year, control the worst of them, save seed like a crazy lady, and then direct seed again the second year (preparing the soil again) with so much seed that no weed would have a chance.

For flowering shrubland - Butterfly bushes are great, especially when WSed and allowed to get a little size on them before planting out. Commerical seed is pricey for the seed counts, but that reflects the cost of cleaning out chaff. Seed with chaff is usually readily available from a lot of gardenweb seed savers.

Big flowering hardy hibiscus could also be nice - big visual impact for visitors and visible to you from a distance.

Oh shoot - I just had a few more ideas. Check your e-mail for a seeds seeds seeds offer. :)

Lynda

Here is a link that might be useful: Wildseed farms BES

Hooray - so good it was worth posting twice.

I hate when that happens. :)

Good ideas! You all are the greatest!

Gotta run to a New Year's Eve party at a neighbor's house. (I'd rather stay home - 6 catalogs came today!!) I know, I'm not normal. The cats will still be here tomorrow morning.

I missed the seed ordering question, but I would wintersow them. Yep, lots of containers, or you could just build a simple hoophouse with a temporary raised bed and plant them out in hunks just like you would from smaller containers. I'm doing this for the backyard. Inside the hoophouse, there will be an underbed storage container that measures about 36 x 18" x 6" deep. I plan to sow nothing but seeds collected from yellow blackeyed susans. Since they should start germinating soon in the hoophouse, I'll plant out the largest ones as soon as they have their second set of leaves, sowing all the way until April when I put the hoophouse in the basement for the summer.

Along with BES in the meadow, I have orange cosmos and a mix of pink/white cosmos. There's amaranthus seeds already tossed about. I even threw out some agastache. It's a very dry area with the longest sun exposure in my yard. I want it to be a reseeding bed with little to no maintenance. I don't trust the birds around here, and I really want the BES and cosmos combination.

Ugh...I forgot to mention how I would plant the seeds. I was so excited about what's to come next year. LOL.

If the bed is 200' long, that's 2400 inches. If you plant one BES every 8", that's 300 plants. So assuming 50% germination, you need about 600 seeds. It's really not that many seeds. However, you could order a single pack from swallowtail in bulk and have all the seeds you need. If I were doing that, I'd probably order Goldstrum (2000 seeds). It's a sure perennial for us and the clumps just get bigger every year. But then I like Autumn colors too.

Then again, at Dollar General, they'll have packs of Gloriosa daisies (Rudbeckia hirta) at the wallet busting price of 3/$1 in just a couple more weeks. So really, it's hard to decide.

Token - ONE plant every 8 inches? I usually do mine in hunks, and place hunks 6-8 inches apart. For BES hunks had 8-12 plants.

You can see a small section of them here in front of the hollyhocks.

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If you click on the photo it will take you to Flickr where the original photo has the ruds marked clearly.

Of course, my planting density might be higher than a lot of folks because I don't use mulch. I plant thick enough that the weeds don't have a chance to get much of a start.

Lynda

OK, please bear with me.

First, I like Token's idea of poppies and larkspur in spring, pink and white cosmos, rose campion, etc. in summer, and pineapple sage, etc in the fall.

How do you implement a plan like that? Token, I know you direct seeded poppies and larkspur in the fall, so I assume your poppies and larkspur will come from that. (I haven't sown anything yet, except for the 4 Solstice containers). I need to prepare the beds (lasagne) before I can sow anything. Should I do that ASAP, then DS poppies and larkspur now? Or can I / should I WS poppies and larkspur, plant them out later? I will say that direct seeding this much is an appealing idea, although it is far less effective.

Token, I think you plan to WS cosmos and other annuals about 3 wks before your last frost date - mid-March? How many plants would you need to fill a bed that is 100' x 3.5' wide? Roughly.

Now, return to the BES bed. Assume that bed is 250 feet long x 4 feet wide (actually 3.5' because I don't want to make tending paths this year). 250 x 4 = 1,000 sq. feet. According to the Wildseed site, 1 oz of seed will cover 1360 sq feet. Average seeds/oz: 106,875. average planting success is 80%. I'll order 1 oz or a bit more BES seeds for variety.

Spacing: Token suggests 8", Lynda plants HOS 6-8" apart. If using 6" spacing, this would be 500 hunks per "row." If chunks are planted on 6" centers, this would be 7 rows in a 42" wide bed (3.5 ft). Total: 500 hunks per row x 7 rows = 3,500 hunks.

Is this correct?

I am having a little trouble with the HOS concept. I understand what you do, but don't understand why so many seedlings growing so close together don't die. Or maybe some do die, and the stronger ones live. Can you enlighten me? I understand WS, except for the HOS concept, and why it does not lead to seedling death.

I have more questions but I need to get the plastic on the hoop house now. Temps are supposed to get VERY cold this weekend and no end in sight.

For HOS - some seedlings do die - depends on the type of plant. Strawflowers are not all that happy about crowded hunks, rudbeckias don't mind.

The HOS pretty much guarantees that I get plant colonies started where I want them. Instead of one seedling pushing it's way through the soil and sending out roots if it can, a community of them colonize an area - culling weak seedlings in the process if there's more in that spot than they need.

With a hunk of seedlings, I can see exactly where they are when they are small and hoe around them instead of accidentally chopping their heads off. If a vole digs under them and tosses them around, the hunk of seedlings usually doesn't care and I can nudge it back into place.

I also like HOS and dense plantings because it more closely resembles the way wild plants around here grow successfully. They grow in hunks and colonies - not as single plants floating like little islands in a sea of mulch. Just my opinion, but I believe that more my garden resembles the style of planting that local species adopt to be successful, the less hassle my garden will be to maintain long term.

Around here, with my soil and growing conditions, that means dense plantings, using a lot of species that send out growth during late fall and early spring (when we have the chance of having some moisture in the soil), taking advantage of deep tap rooted species, and being prepared to give up on tender annuals. In your zone and growing conditions, or in Token's, the strategy is likely to be different.

A lot of my growing strategy does involve being willing to let some plants cry and die if that's what they want to do. A successful plant here has to have a reasonable ability to tolerate drought, push roots through clay (either as a tap root or as a seedling colony), handle surprise heat waves in February followed by hard freezes in March and April, and similar nasty growing conditions.

Another personal belief is that I think that a lot of commercial seed has been selected for pretty flowers, usually short heights, and vigor has been bred out of them - possible intentionally. Some seeds are advertised proudly as being incapable of self sowing - as if sterile plants are something to brag about.

That all might be perfectly fine, though, in a small garden bed with gentle growing conditions. Here it's a big liability - and planting a lot of seeds lets me take advantage of genetic diversity and then save seed from free flowering, strong seed producing tough plants. Since my flower beds are the seed farm for plants that will eventually be direct sown in really challenging conditions, sowing heavy and letting the strong ones kill off the weaklings gets me what I need quickly. Giving each seedling it's own cushy spot in the garden and individual attention might give me a really pretty garden - but it won't give me the fastest route to growing seed capable of getting the rest of the 15 acres flowered up. And I really want 15 acres of flowers - not just the whole front yard full. :)

Lynda

OK, please bear with me.

First, I like Token's idea of poppies and larkspur in spring, pink and white cosmos, rose campion, etc. in summer, and pineapple sage, etc in the fall.

How do you implement a plan like that? Token, I know you direct seeded poppies and larkspur in the fall, so I assume your poppies and larkspur will come from that. (I haven't sown anything yet, except for the 4 Solstice containers). I need to prepare the beds (lasagne) before I can sow anything. Should I do that ASAP, then DS poppies and larkspur now? Or can I / should I WS poppies and larkspur, plant them out later? I will say that direct seeding this much is an appealing idea, although it is far less effective.

I would get that bed in order right away. Try to use topsoil or some kind of composted material on the top so you can direct sow right into that. I direct sowed poppies last March 1, there was snow on the ground and it made it easy to see where they landed. Larkspur was wintersown, but I didn't get nearly the results I seem to have by direct sowing in the fall. I think many of my seeds rotted. They were commercial seeds, and I only have about 25 of the three kinds I sowed. This year, I went with the traded variety and had several hundred. You might also want to try direct seeding with cloches, little plastic tops where you put several seeds in the soil underneath them. Carrie360 does this with great results for CA poppies.

Token, I think you plan to WS cosmos and other annuals about 3 wks before your last frost date - mid-March? How many plants would you need to fill a bed that is 100' x 3.5' wide? Roughly.

My cosmos will be direct sown. I have no problems with getting them to germinate as long as I sow them a couple weeks after the last frost. This past year, I sowed them right after pulling some cabbage and other distressed cold crop plants in the same area. Disturbed soil makes a great bed for these plants. Seems they all germinated. It depends on the kind of cosmos you sow too. The orange ones are much larger than the pink/white. Cosmos sulpherous vs Cosmos sensation.

Now, return to the BES bed. Assume that bed is 250 feet long x 4 feet wide (actually 3.5' because I don't want to make tending paths this year). 250 x 4 = 1,000 sq. feet. According to the Wildseed site, 1 oz of seed will cover 1360 sq feet. Average seeds/oz: 106,875. average planting success is 80%. I'll order 1 oz or a bit more BES seeds for variety.

Spacing: Token suggests 8", Lynda plants HOS 6-8" apart. If using 6" spacing, this would be 500 hunks per "row." If chunks are planted on 6" centers, this would be 7 rows in a 42" wide bed (3.5 ft). Total: 500 hunks per row x 7 rows = 3,500 hunks.

Is this correct?

I recommended a single plant because last year, that's what I did. I pulled the largest seedlings and potted them into individual containers. Those plants bloomed like crazy. Three tiny plants became a huge mass of blooms. It works for me. HOS plants bloomed, but sparsely and later than individual plants. Different sites, different soils, different sunlight, so there are many reasons this could be the case.

I would also steer away from planting in rows, especially if you want a more natural look which is what it sounds like you're aiming for. Plant in groups of three and five. Leave some space for other plants like Shasta Daisies and echinacea. Toss in some grasses too. A 1 gallon container purchased at the nursery can yield 3-4 plants if you divide it before planting. It will take a couple years to fill in, but that's less work you have to do in the coming years.

I am having a little trouble with the HOS concept. I understand what you do, but don't understand why so many seedlings growing so close together don't die. Or maybe some do die, and the stronger ones live. Can you enlighten me? I understand WS, except for the HOS concept, and why it does not lead to seedling death.

Some seedlings will die. I cull mine individually instead. So maybe you want to look at sowing 4-6 seeds in 9ounce cups inside the hoophouse instead of a large container where you have to deal with the HOS issue. You can always pinch off the weaker plants, or split the cups when you plant them.

For a bed this large, you need a systematic way of doing the planting or else it's going to eat up all your time in the spring. Trust me, planting 700+ plants over the course of a few weeks is back breaking work. But the rewards are incredible.

I have more questions but I need to get the plastic on the hoop house now. Temps are supposed to get VERY cold this weekend and no end in sight.

Yep...same weather is heading out way tonight. Supposed to be 18F. That's late February weather for us, not January.

See these pictures for individually planted BES. See those three tiny plants?

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Here's what they became.

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It took over 2 months, but they bloomed for weeks. I deadheaded and tossed the seeds back into the bed. I haven't seen any sprouts yet, but there is some wood mulch, so I may have doomed them.

Basically, the best method is the one that works for you both in terms of germination and planting out. Direct sowing and wintersowing might be combined to make sure you get a certain number and variety of plants. Next year, after all the seed you'll collect from a few BES, overseeding every fall should be plenty.

Remember, when direct sowing, there are several keys to success. Prepare the ground, rake smooth, sow your seeds, water, water, water, water, and water. At anytime during germination, the seeds dry out, they'll die. That's one thing that wintersowing in containers takes care of. You don't have to water. I watered twice a day every day when I sowed my larkspur in the backyard. About 15 minutes each time. You've got to keep them moist.

Lynda, Token: I owe you big time! Such good advice, but I know it took so long to write. Others will read this and learn from it. Thank you.

Lynda: I remember that you grow vegetables in buckets because of your soil. I cannot imagine tackling 15 acres of thin soil, but I'll bet the goats are improving that problem. I'm not in a hurry to finish - gardeners never finish. Like writers, we are always revising. I enjoy the process of growing plants from beginning to end. I need to work on my design skills.

Token: I'll get the beds in order ASAP. I can put down cardboard or tons of newspaper, then get topsoil. This year has been such a challenge. We went from drought to drowning in a couple of months. I have at least 300 daffodils and 300 tulips and +-200 other bulbs in the garage. Haven't been able to plant them because the soil is saturated. You push a shovel into the soil, the hole fills up with water. These bulbs don't like being wet. I think I'm going to have to throw them on the ground, and get the dirt guy to bring enough to cover them 6 inches or so. I'm not looking forward to that one bit -- I have a whole lot of shoveling to do soon, or it will be too late.

Like most people, my problem is time (or lack of). DH and I have a business and we also teach. The period between Thanksgiving and mid-January is relatively slow, so it's always been a good time to do major work in the garden (which is why I have all those bulbs in the garage). Since today is Jan 1, I have a sense of urgency about getting things done before life veers back into the fast lane.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! One day, I'll have some terrific seed to share!

Gardeners never finish, you got that right. In the first picture up there, you don't see any of the other plantings I added a few weeks after those rudbeckia went in. That juniper is now in another location. There's a lilac planted just south of those BES and of course, the nasturtiums are gone. I'm forever changing my mind and playing musical plants in the garden. Walking around with a trowel looking for a spot to place an uprooted perennial/shrub/tree is a perfectly normal way to garden. ;)

Pam, I just wanted to let you know that you inspired me last night. Taking some cues from Lynda and some from my own experience, I sowed 120 9-ounce cups of Rudbeckia hirta collected from my yellow blooming plants this year. I've put them in the hoophouse. I'll keep an eye on them considering the wild temperature swings I'm getting in there on sunny days.

I sowed a pinch of seeds in each container. I'd guess there's about 10-20 seeds in each. I'm hoping to divide them later on, like I did last year, eventually planting one plant individually from the hunks of seeds in each cup, if that makes sense. I'm gonna have a riot of color in the backyard this summer. Let's hope it works, for both of us.

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It's awfully hard to screw up ruds.

Thru the hole in the milk jug, March 10
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I planted them out early when tiny. Here's July 8, starting to bloom
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Later, August I guess
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Karen

Token: Thank you. We do inspire each other, that's one of the best things about this forum. I can't wait to see photos of your backyard this spring! Do you get cups at a dollar store? Do you cover the tops before putting them in the hoop house so they don't dry out? Lynda has a very standardized system with 3" and 1 gallon pots. She sows very thick in the little 3" pots ... and it works.

My hoop house - with modifications - is finished! We were so concerned about the wind (it's blowing 30-35+ with gusts to 50+ later today and tonight). After trying to stabilize it with line, we found a simpler solution. We built another frame with reebar and PVC pipe outside the existing structure. I watched it this morning - it's doing fine. The next couple of days will be very windy so this will be a good test.

One more question: How do you secure the plastic sheeting on the ends?

Take care,
Pam

One other thing I didn't mention about why I use a high density planting style -

I don't fertilize the garden. I do augment the soil with compost from our vegetable buckets each fall but other than that they are on their own.

Neighbor up the hill has a smaller garden and different gardening style. She's bought a lot of garden soil for her beds, uses mulch, and fertilizes regularly.

I share a few of my containers each spring and we get a kick out of how different the plants grow. I might have a mass planting of a hundred sunflowers and she's have 4 or 5 plants. Mine fill an area through having a density of plants, hers through having a few plants that look like they're on steroids.

Both gardens look really cool. :) She likes her burley "plants on steroids". I like my plants not being "nitrogen junkies". She deadheads plants to prolong blooming, I leave seed heads for harvest, self sowing, and so I can look at brown seed heads all winter. :)

Having different garden styles makes it all the more fun to go snoop in each other's gardens!

Lynda

Pam, I bought 51 cups for just over a dollar at Wal-Mart. The dollar store has them too. I just happened to be at the Mart.

For securing the plastic, I screwed a couple boards onto each end of the wooden raised bed I built. The 4' long pieces of lumber hold it snug. We've got wind gusts of 20+ today. With the plastic pulled tight, it's doing fine. The house blocks a lot of my wind too.

On the front, the two 8' 1x3s are wrapped around the plastic. On the back, it's stapled to the wood bed. On the sides, a 4' 1x3.

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I don't cover. They'll stay plenty moist inside the hoophouse as long as it's closed. Like a large container.

Good luck. Hang tight til this blows over. ;)

I am so jealous of the hoophouse!!!

I just wanted to say this thread has helped me a lot! I WS'ed some Ruds last year and they were my biggest success.

I am thinking of combos for them this year and Plan to have them everywhere!

I have some from the WS swap and I have already sowed those. I also plan to combine them with my bee balm. Then some combos with shasta daisy and maybe some others. I did not think of larkspur till this thread.

I may also plant them in front of the butterfly bushes in 2 beds by the road. they can give lots of color till the BB bushes take off.

I may need to order more seeds of BES.... any other combos might look good?

Karen