How to Grow Wildflowers in Your Yard

The Fantastically Simple Grow

The Tropical Grower is adding wildflowers to the mix with How to Grow Wildflowers in Your Yard because I was inspired.  A single Wildflower is beautiful, but a field of them is magical.  Absolutely inspiring.  This week I’m up on My Daddy’s mountain for a visit, and the wildflowers climbing the sides are in full swing.  Here, in their Zone 7b, you find fields full of them, ledges of rock blazing with color, they even plant them to grow roadside.  Fantastic, if you’re into that sort of thing, which I 100% am. 

You don’t get any easier grows than wildflowers.  Most of them are literally weeds, at least where they’re from.  We can even grow them from directly planting seeds in our Tropical Zone 10.  And the flowers, Oh My!  Big hearty babies holding on through the rainy season.  We like that in a flower. 

They Grow Tall & Spread

The challenge with Wildflowers is their size and tendency to spread.  Most people shy away from including them in their gardens and yards for those reasons.  Planting a fence line with Wildflowers will quickly return it to a feral, primitive state.  Unless you have acres of property, someone will probably complain, most likely Code Enforcement or your Homeowners Association.  Most places require a mow which will take down all the flowers and defeat the whole purpose of planting them there.  Humph!

If you have a mountain side, steep and difficult to mow, they make perfect sense.  In fact, they are probably growing there on their own, right now.  Planting them roadside where there are steep slopes or sparse mows is also a good choice, or if you have a large field.  However, if you are planting them in your garden or landscaping, indeed confining them is necessary.      

Wildflowers Are A Must

Yeah, I’m one of those people who actually notice the blooms scattered along the highways.  The speckled colors of meadow.  Purples and yellows waiting to be identified, maybe grown.  They remind me of the meadow behind the house where My Parents and Brothers lived when I was born.  There were definitely Wildflowers there and fireflies.  We played with them until I was 5.

So, having Wildflowers in Our Garden just seemed natural, a must.  They’ve always been there, at least, as far back as I can remember, some years more than others.  When I took over and started clean-up, I even considered turning some of our yard area into meadows, but good sense won out.  You only plant grasses in the Tropics if you do NOT understand snakes.  High grasses attract snakes.  We have dogs.  No-go in Our Garden.  But you can turn whole beds and/or dedicate pots for Wildflowers, cut down on both problems, size and spread.

Pots

Our favorite way to grow Wildflowers is in pots.  You can place them anywhere, move them around if needed, and spray around them without killing what’s inside.  Although moving the pot, spraying, and letting everything dry before you move it back is the better option.  I prefer a bigger pot to minimize the chance of spray, and I’m careful, mostly and probably lazy because I don’t tend to move them.  But you are going to have to do something, because these things are going to seed.

We also prefer pots on hard or covered surfaces.  Besides putting a barrier between roots wandering out the bottom of the pot, there are less places for seeds to germinate and take hold.  This cuts down on maintenance.  We like that.

You can also get very creative with your pots.  Line them up and create a Wildflower border.  Group them into any shape, or just set a trio together off in a corner.  Pots are so versatile, you can change them at any time.

Beds

While you absolutely can dedicate a whole bed to Wildflowers and it can be quite dramatic, we tend to plant wildflowers as ground cover in our tree beds.  The tall Wildflowers don’t dwarf the trees or take them over.  However, I will tell you, planting them in young tree beds had giant Zinnias growing through Coconut Palm fronds, which was sort of fun.  They kind of looked like Christmas ornaments.  

If you are growing organic or just want to rest your beds, you can plant a crop of Wildflowers there to boost the nutrients.  Have you ever heard of the term ‘letting it go fallow’?  That’s letting it go back to a natural state.  It actually rests the bed and boosts your soil. 

The only problem is the seeds which will continue to come up year after year anywhere it’s planted.  Since you don’t want to be weeding them out of your veggies in the next rotation, remember to deadhead your flowers.  That means cut the dead, spent flowers, before they turn into seeds and spread all over the area.  And, yeah, that’s some work.  Now you know why the Wildflowers are only planted in the tree beds in Our Garden.

Seeds

You’re going to want to plant seeds.  As I mentioned before, these are weeds in whatever area they are from and grow fantastically from seeds.  While I have picked up a pack of Marigold Starter Plants once upon a time, they come up so quickly, it’s rarely worth the price.  If you decide you really want Starter Plants, go with a well established hanging basket or a plug pack.  These will give you the most bang for your bucks.

Currently, we have 2 different Wildflower seed packs planted in the yard.  We started with the Hummingbird & Butterfly Wildflower Seed Collection, most of the Zinnias, Wild Cosmos, Larkspur, Toadflax, Catchfly and Scarlet Sage came from there.  They are all mixed together for a cornucopia of flowers wherever you sprinkle them, just like a meadow.  We also have the Heirloom Flower Seed Packets.  These are individual flower packets with the Bachelor Buttons, Plains Coreopsis, Evening Primrose, and such, all separate.  Both have sprouted and produced all the lovely flowers being photographed for the What’s Bloomn’ slideshow. 

Planting Seeds

I use the ‘Scratch the Surface, Sprinkle the Seeds’ method.  Since most Wildflower seeds are small, they prefer only ¼ inch of soil cover to germinate.  Taking something small like a skewer or small pointy thing and roughing up just the very top layer is perfect.  You don’t want it too deep, ¼ an inch.  Sprinkle the seeds, and pat the soil back into place.  Done.  Or you can just sprinkle the seeds into the beds.  Done.  I do this with the tree beds.  Sometimes I pat them down.  For more on Planting seeds, see How to Choose Between Seeds and Starter Plants.

Soil and Nutrients

Wildflowers will grow in almost any soil.  In fact, they will grab onto a few grains of soil or sand and grow on rocks.  They don’t need a lot of room.  They grow in sidewalk cracks, inside pipe, you name it, it will most likely grow there with the tiniest amount of soil ever.  No problem.

Any nutrients are fine.  See above, it will grow on rock.  Almost no nutrients there.  We fill our Wildflower pots with compost and a little Yard Sand for drainage.  Once a year, during our Spring prep or when we want to drop more seeds, I’ll add more compost to top off the pot and they get the same yearly dose of the neutral granular fertilizer for overall garden health.  We’re using the Osmocote Smart-Release Plant Food.  The same goes for the beds.  The truth is I probably don’t need to do that much, but it’s an overall garden health thing.  The flowers get a little too big.

Water

Yes, all plants need water, but Wildflowers are not overly picky about it.  Think weeds.  Will they get big if they have more water?  Yes, absolutely giant things in the rainy season.  Will they die if they don’t get a bunch of water?  No, they will live, but if it’s very little water they probably will be very small with no blooms.  Since you grow them for the blooms, you want them to have water.  Now, how much depends on how big you want them to get.  Up to you.

Full Sun

Most Wildflowers thrive in full sun, even here in our Tropical Zones.  However, there are some varieties that require partial shade and even shade.  Our Evening Primrose will only grow in dappled light.  Anything else, they fry.  Be sure to check your Planting Instructions.

Butterflies

Wildflowers attract butterflies.  We are firm believers of attracting butterflies to the garden.  My Mom and I used to visit butterfly gardens when I was in college specifically for determining the best plants.  Psst!  It’s Lantana.  Maybe just for our area, but the butterflies love the Lantana.  If you want caterpillars, they will munch down Yellow Trumpet Vine and Passion Fruit Flower vine to its roots.  Love the stuff, and we have sacrificed both for a larger butterfly population.

We specifically grow Mexican Butterfly Weed, or the Tropical version of Milkweed for Monarch Butterfly caterpillars to devour, repeatedly.  We’re on a cycle of them eating them to the sticks, and them coming back.  And they come back quickly.  The only problem is we’re constantly plucking seed pods.  This thing seeds like crazy, and you have to keep up with it if you don’t want it all over your garden.  The pods open to the fuzzy flying seeds. It’s a commitment.

How to Grow Wildflowers in Your Yard

Really, throwing seeds in a pot, doesn’t matter the soil or if you’re going to weed or water it, and doing nothing is as simple a grow as they come.  Do you kill everything?  Or do you just want some of the most beautiful flowers on the planet?  Yup, grow some Wildflowers.  You won’t be sorry.