I have started pulling up forget me nots as soon as they bloom. In the veggie garden I pull them up before they bloom. Still plenty left next year. That bell flower campanula is another story. The year I removed most my good perennials from a garden they had invaded because we were painting that side of the house, I used roundup on the companula. Most of it died, but I still do spot round up (with a big piece of cardboard in hand to shield the other plants) as some appear. They have huge white tubors 2 or 3 feet underground, and a new plant will grow from a piece of root so pulling them up can spread them! My other problem plant is the beautiful native white anenome. Its lovely, but totally takes over. I've been pulling that up, letting it stay in one bed only cuz its so pretty. I just read an article about gardening as you get older and avoiding this type of plant as well as really high maintenance perennials is what they recommended. Nice mounding plants that stay where you put them are what I like more and more! Good luck Micki, Kathy

gfult, One of the forget me nots is actually a biennial, so it grows in year one and in year two it blooms (usually in May or early Jun), sets seed and dies.. Presumably it will self sow after it sets seed, but many gardeners are tidy and clip off the brown stems with the dead seed heads which prevents this from happening. As cheesy says above, if you have a place for forget me nots, they will make a beautiful blue focal point in spring, maybe for years to come. If you put them in the wrong place, they will shade out smaller plants in the spring and look very messy coming up between plants where they don't belong. Lime

In my excitement, I forgot her backside. Here is the photo of her back. I do not wish to sexualize my plants, but, the backside looks like a male version of her front. It remind me of those fertility trees that people give offerings to, for bountiful harvest or children. This post was edited by cookie_f on Sun, Jun 9, 13 at 19:43

OakIris, I have plants coming out the kazoo this year and was planning to pot some of them up to bring to the swap after I got home from my trip, but since I'll be out of town until after the swap this time, that won't be happening. But, I did just look and in 2012 I actually took the time to collect some seed, and I'll do my best to remember to send a little packet of them along with Barb for you. When you get them I need to warn you that most of what you see in the baggie will be chaff! The actual seeds are the hard little black things!!! When I collected them there were a whole lot of them that had gone to seed, so I just cut the whole plants off at the bottom and stuck them in a bag and left them sit to dry completely for a month or two. When I got around to it I just SHOOK the bag really well, and since everything was SO dry, a lot of "plant debris" came off along with the seeds! What I recommend you do with them is to wait till late summer or early fall, then "rough up" the soil in a couple small places, take a BIG pinch of "seeds" (the stuff in the baggie!) and scatter it in each of the places you've "roughed up." Then rub your hand over the soil where you scattered the seeds to "mix them in" just a little bit, and then clearly mark where you planted them 'cause they kind of look like weeds when they first come up and otherwise you might decide to pull them out when you see them and then think the seed I gave you was no good!!! ;-) Depending on the weather, some of them will probably come up before winter gets really cold, and then more will come up in spring. Any that come up will bloom next summer! And once you get a couple that bloom--you'll never get rid of them again! In this case, I don't consider that to be a bad thing! When they start to drop seeds you can either scatter some of it in other places where you want them--or you can just let them do their own thing and they'll wind up coming up all over the place anyway in a couple years! After any individual plant blooms it's gonna look REALLY ratty, and there's no way to make it look "good" again, so once you know for sure they've dropped some seed, I recommend just pulling the "old" plants out (I cut them off at the top of the soil, leaving the roots in the soil to decompose!). Since, once they drop seed, you'll ALWAYS have more, there's no need to try to "save" the old ones. If you have any other questions, I might not be back to answer them till after I get home after my trip. I'm crazy busy trying to get ready to go, and now something "legal" came up that's gonna take a bunch of the time I already don't have! Have fun at the swap, and enjoy your forget-me-nots next spring, Skybird Edited to add: After you sow the seed it would be a really good idea to mulch that area with some sort of "wood mulch" to help keep the surface of the soil moist. If you already mulch, just do whatever you normally do! Edited a second time to add: Mine are just starting to bloom! And my Brunnera 'Looking Glass' is in full bloom too! Love that BLUE!