When planning our landscaping this past spring, I wasn’t really sure what to do with a small patch of land next to the brick patio on the side of our house. A wildflower garden sounded intriguing, so we decided to give it a shot. It was a fun experiment, especially since we mainly used bags of mixed wildflower seeds and each new type of flower that bloomed was a surprise.
The delicate cosmos were probably my favorite.
Since the garden is just a few feet in front of our side door, I didn’t want to plant anything more than a few feet tall. My husband snuck in some sunflower seeds, however, and I’m so glad he did.
I had never seen so many butterflies and hummingbirds at our house until planting our wildflower garden. They visit just about every day.
These cornflowers a.k.a. bachelor’s button bloomed in just about every color.
Anyone know what these red and yellow flowers are? Also, do you see the tiny photobomber in this shot?
This is my first time growing zinnias. I love their little golden crowns!
Pink flowers are always welcome in my garden.
Of course we still have our beautiful black eyed susans. They always put on an amazing show! They’re actually starting to invade other areas of our landscaping, but they’re such excellent performers that I don’t really mind. You can see the wildflower garden in the background on the left there.
The only downside to the wildflower garden is that it looked messy and times because it was really difficult to get in and weed out the grass. We should have planted more seeds for a thicker garden, but we’ll know for next year. I plan to do research on native wildflowers in our area. Any other essential wildflowers we should consider adding?
Gorgeous post!
Thanks, Emily!
Your wildflower garden is lovely! If these were heritage seeds, you could save the dry seed heads from many of them and replant next year. I routinely save Bachelor Buttons, Zinnias, Cosmos, and Calendula.
I don’t know if the following qualify as “wildflowers”, but I also have cilantro, dill, borage, and milk weed that self seed every year. Bees love the borage, butterflies love the milk weed, and the tiny flowers of the cilantro and dill attract many tiny beneficial insects.
Thanks Heather, this is really helpful! I love milk weed and cilantro, but I never thought of adding them to the garden. I’ll also look into dill and borage. These aren’t heritage variety, but I’m hoping to add some heritage seeds next spring. Thanks for the tip on saving the heritage seed heads!
I adore wild flowers. Especially when they bring in the butterflies. Your garden is so lovely.
That is truly a lovely garden, way prettier than the one we have back home. I am seriously think about putting some wildflowers there too.
Thanks for your lovely pictures.
Wildflowers are a lot of fun and it looks like you had success with them, that doesn’t always happen! Planting native flowers is a great idea. I watched a program where a man had reserved like 5 acres of his property just for native flowers to grow, it was so gorgeous, but yes, lots of weeds. Ha! There will always be too many weeds in gardening.
Garden is full of butterflies, its so great, my daughter will excite with tthese, will make plan our wildflower garden
Thanks for post
The pictures are b e a u t i f u l. I especially love the flower with the butterfly. Thank you for the beauty.
I adore wildflowers and your garden is gorgeous! I save the heads to my zinnias every year and replant them. So easy to do. Just toss them in a bucket and let dry over winter. Ready to sow in the spring. Also, once you plant cosmos you usually have them for life. lol! Mine come back every year. Not always in the same place. I love self sowers! Thanks for sharing with SYC.
hugs,
Jann
Thanks for the tip about saving zinnia heads to plant next year, Jann. I’m definitely going to do that!
Look sunflower, its too brilliant
I especially love the flower with the butterfly.
Thanks for sharing
What a lovely post! Greetings from Dubai and have a great day!!
Shantana
We are focusing on growing food in our garden, but after seeing all your beautiful flowers I’m tempted to rethink that! Thanks for sharing on the #wastelesswednesday blog hop. Can’t wait to see what you share next week!
Meg, We need our pollinators so butterflies and bees are great to have around. Thanks for sharing. Sylvia D.
Hi Meg, just hopping back to let you know that you will be featured at SYC this week.
hugs,
Jann
oh you have some lovely photos here of your beautiful garden! Cosmos was the first flower that I planted as a child / always a favorite :)
Your red and yellow flowers with the photo bomber are Coreopsis. Self seeding and long blooming.
Hi Meg, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing your wildflower garden! Thanks for sharing your lovely photos! Blessings, Janet
I enjoy your blog, and love a lot of your ideas. But I do wish that not all of your pictures were tight close ups. I would have loved and gotten a lot of inspiration from a distanced full view of the flower garden, to really see all of it. Not just tight close ups. I would have liked to see the shape of it, the way it accentuated the house etc etc