Cottage Flowers that Reseed Themselves

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Beautiful cottage flowers that reseed themselves. A simple way to get masses of gorgeous flowers on a budget. Start with one and get a hundred more!

Cottage Flowers that Reseed Themselves. 

Have you seen some PINS on Pinterest that read something like this: “Don’t plant these 20 Flowers!” or “32 plants you should never grow!” then you read the article and they list tons of the plants I share here? 

Late Summer Garden 2016, Ten cottage flowers that reseed themselves

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I really have a hard time with misinformation like that.  Here is why…

For one, gardening is an ongoing endeavor. Anyone that has gardened for any length of time knows that any easy-to-seed plant can become a problem if you don’t keep them in check.  

How do you keep flowers that reseed themselves from becoming a problem? 

Easy, you deadhead as the flowers begin to fade and before seed heads develop. I have an entire article on deadheading you can read here.  

get more blooms

Benefits of Deadheading

Cutting spent blooms from your plants has a few benefits. See not only why to deadhead your flowers but how.

Another benefit to deadheading is it encourages the plants to continue blooming.

So don’t be afraid to plant any of these (unless for some reason they have been listed as invasive in your area) and enjoy easy-to-grow flowers year after year.

And the best part is, it is free.  

One thing I have found so very helpful in having a beautiful cottage garden is the discovery of cottage flowers that reseed themselves.  

There are tons of them, both annuals and perennials, but for today I am going to share just some.

Foxgloves

Foxgloves are a cottage garden staple.  One flower that makes wonderful vertical accents in your garden borders.

They love dappled sun or part shade.  Many are long-lived and super long flowering.

Usually considered a biennial some newer varieties will actually bloom for you the first summer if sown early enough.

Botanical Interests carries these Foxgloves seeds that are very easy to grow!

beautiful spring bloomer

Foxgloves

How to Grow Foxgloves in your cottage garden.  A stately plant that adds so much charm to your beds and borders in Spring.

Morning Glory

More on Growing Morning Glories

If you are looking for a great, fast-growing climber that will knock your socks off with an abundance of blooms, give Morning Glories a try!

Just be sure to having something for them to climb on to show off their beauty.

Some states have deemed Morning Glories as an invasive plant, check before planting in case your state is one.

Morning Glories are great for creating a privacy screen or a carpet of color in the heat of the summer when other blooms may be fading away.

beautiful vining plant

Grow Morning Glories

Growing morning glories is so easy and rewarding.  They can easily cover a fence, pergola, or trellis with beautiful blooms in a few weeks.

Sweet Williams

Sweet Williams put on a dazzling show in borders, beds, and containers.  As the name suggests they add a beautiful sweet fragrance to your garden.

Though typically blooming in Spring and early Summer there are new varieties that are day-neutral and will bloom all summer long with deadheading.

Pollinators love them!

More on Growing Sweet Williams

sweet smelling flowers

Sweet Williams are for those who want to add a tough but sweet-smelling cottage flower to their garden. Learn what growing conditions Sweet William plants like, how to start them from seeds, and how to care for them for a long bloom time.

Sweet Peas

Ten Cottage Flowers that Reseed Themselves

Sweet Peas live up to their name, they have the loveliest scent and keep on blooming all summer long with constant cutting.  They make wonderful bouquets to bring indoors and enjoy.

Only the annual sweet peas have scent, the perennial one does not.

How to Grow Sweet Peas

5. Hollyhocks

Ten Cottage Flowers that Reseed Themselves

Hollyhocks are described as sturdy and stately old fashioned plants.  With an array of colors and types (aka: doubles or singles) you won’t have a hard time finding something that will fit into your scheme.

Hollyhocks bloom over a long summer season.  And like other reseeding flowers, they cross-pollinate so the volunteer seedlings that come up will often be different colors than what you originally planted.  That is always a fun surprise in gardening.

How to Grow Hollyhocks

6. Daisies

Ten Cottage Flowers that Reseed Themselves

The Shasta Daisy is a classic,  they happily spread by seed of their own volition but are not hard to dig up if they sprout where they are not wanted.  One packet of seeds can produce plants that look a bit different from each other.

Daisies are great for cutting and summer bouquets which keeps them blooming longer.  If you want to clone a particular daisy because of its unique beauty you can always take root divisions.

How to Grow Daisies

7. Black Eyed Susies

How to Grow Black Eyed Susans, easy flowers for your cottage garden. Easily reseeds for years of enjoyment and ease. FlowerPatchFarmhouse.com

Black Eyed Susans are one of my favorite flowers in mid summer.  They are reliable, tough as nails and so prolific that you can’t go wrong.

Their sunny disposition and drought tolerance make them a dry garden must have.

How to Grow Black Eyed Susans

8. Echinacea aka Coneflower

How to Grow Purple Coneflower aka Echinacea

Echinaceas come in a variety of colors and are another drought tolerant beauty.  There are many sterile hybrids available that you can’t grow from seed but there are dozens of others that you can.

They are easy to direct sow in the garden in abundant drifts.

How to Grow Echinacea (aka Purple Coneflower)

9. Bachelors Buttons

Bachelor’s Buttons need little care. Flowers attract butterflies, are superb additions to fresh or dried arrangements. Plants are deer resistant.

In mild summer areas Bachelor’s Buttons will continue to flower until September when old blooms are removed. Sow seeds in fall in mild winter areas, and early spring everywhere.

10. Cosmos

Cosmos are wonderfully easy.  They thrive in hot sun, poor soil and drought conditions.

They come in a variety of colors, heights and styles. They also attract pollinators and bloom until first freeze.

Verbena Bonariensis

All the best flowers

Verbena bonariensis

Verbena bonariensis is a beneficial insect magnet and Butterflies love it too.

See how easy it is to plant and why you want this beauty in your garden!

More flowers that reseed themselves beautifully:
Columbine
Toadflax (Linaria)
Larkspur
Cleome
Feverfew

What flowers do you grow that reseed and spread for you?

Happy Gardening!

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23 Comments

  1. Tee Billingsley says:

    @Kate Q, I have had luminary for 38 years. Mine blooms purple and has scattered over these years to make the most beautiful spring time. I think this is the best written article about reseeding and invasive plants. We moved on our farm in 1982 and that was covered with what God has planned it here. There are many large grapevines, trumpet vines, and every other kind of vine that grows wild. I have two plants that you might be interested in adding to the list. The first one is obedient plant and the second one is garlic chives. Keep up your excellent posting. My garden is a mixture of native and hybrid plants that I love.

  2. Great recommendations, thank you.

  3. In zone 6 I have Bupleurum, Clary Sage, and Lunaria that self seed all over the place! Bupleurum is a spring annual, terrific cut flower, easily removed where not wanted (ie evey path!) It can also be deliberately Clary Sage and Lunaria are both biennial, and easily controlled the first year. Clary sage is an amazing cut flower, blooms for weeks, as well as lower shoots when cut. The leaves smell like grapefruit when bruised, and the first year plants transplant wonderfully. They also like the pathways. Lunaria self seeds quite well, flowers in a lovely pink early spring second year, about 3′. The oval green seed pods must be left to dry on the plant if you want the Silver Dollar which is between the pods outer coverings. All of these plants do well in part sun, on minimal care. when I control seed these plants I just sprinkle the seeds generously on the soil and let nature do the rest.

  4. Linda J Jackson says:

    Add linaria or toadflax. They are a perennial which reseeds freely. I have pink and purple. they are easy to pull out if they grow where you don’t want them.

  5. Yes, the downside many face with plants that reseed easily is they will come up in other areas. Deadheading is the only way to keep that from happening.

  6. My Mom has found that her Bleeding hearts reseed themselves SO heavily that she is pulling them out of the lawn where she really does not want them, and she gives plants away every year because she has more than she will ever want or need.

  7. I love Forget me Nots, I have a ton in my front flower bed and yes they do spread so well by seed. I should add them to this post.

  8. Nancy Kelley says:

    How about Forget-me-nots! They fill the nooks and crannies of my garden and are one of the first flowers to come out in the spring. (Northern California) One packet of seeds and you will have Forget-me-nots forever! I also love our California Poppies, foxglove, and daisys.

  9. I love my trumpet vine but I have it contained in barrels and I prune it hard each Fall before seeds develop. One friend of mine that had issues with it coming across the fence from a neighbors was to cut off the suckers then paint the cut end with gysophylate. Here is an article she referenced: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/vines/trumpet-vine/kill-trumpet-vine.htm

    I hope you get it eradicated from you garden. I dislike when plants get out of control! We have a perennial sweet pea here that is a nuisance so I totally get what you are saying.

  10. Kathy Webster says:

    Trumpet Vine is hideously and totally invasive. Datura is another story all together. Many folks call them Moon Flowers!!! I have no issues with Moon Plants or Moon Flowers (Datura), but I would be very, very happy if I could totally eradicate the Trumpet Vine that someone planted long ago in this area! It is hateful and insidious!!!

    It tries to kill my rose bush every year. It has roots under my house and it grows everywhere it can travel! The roots travel along the ground and it comes up everywhere!!! I have been trying to kill it for years!!!

  11. The flowers look so cute, I like the fresh purple flowers. The fragrance of the flowers makes our spirits more comfortable, thanks for your article.

  12. I have had great success with many seed vendors, I especially like Renee’s Seeds, Botanical Interests, and Swallowtail Garden Seeds but Burpee and Park Seeds are really good too.

  13. Where is a good place to buy seeds? I love all the flowers shown especially the blue ones.

    thanks, Pan

  14. Unfortunately Zinnias and Marigolds don’t really reseed for me here of their own accord. Not sure why, maybe our winters are too cold. But I do love them and plant the seeds myself straight into the garden each season when it is warm enough. I am so glad they reseed for you. When I lived in the San Joaquin Valley they did reseed for me but the winters were much warmer. I love Cosmos, they are such a great flower and easy too.

  15. How about the many colors and varieties of Zinnias, and marigolds. I have them in the same area as my cosmos. Cosmos was the first flower that my grandaughter planted and she had so much fun deadheading and making sure the seeds went back in the soil. And the following year she found them all over the place where they had blown too. She’s 13 now and I think the cosmos will always be the flower she loves!! Great little learning to love plants flower for a little 3 or 4 year old. We still have alot of those cosmos all over our little 10 acre area that are from those very first plants when she came to live with us.

  16. I have tried Datura, a gorgeous pink one and a yellow one. I could not get them to reseed but it just might be my zone, who knows. They are lovely, I may have to try again. 🙂

  17. I would add Datura, commonly called Angel’s Trumpet. I planted 2 small plants who showed average strong their first year, then it was as though I never saw them. Until 3 years later when Trumpets started volunteering in my front & side gardens all on their own – it’d been so long I’d forgotten about them!

    I came to visit you from Bloghetti bloghop – hope you’ll make time to someday stop by my place & let me know you were there.

  18. Nasturtiums don’t reseed for me either but I love how easy they are to grow from seeds I collected the Fall before and/or buying new varities! Those ones you bought sure sound like a pretty combo.

  19. It’s so nice to see flowers at this time of year. We are in snow here. I bought a new type of nasturtium seeds today at the local grocery store. They are called Day and Night mix. Deep maroon and soft cream color.
    Because of our zone, Cosmos does not reseed here. Most of the others you mentioned do.
    Thanks for sharing.

  20. I have Cosmos year round. Tons in my yard now but not quit ready to bloom yet. Old Faithfuls!

  21. Thanks, I am trying to get some flowers in the back of my neighbors yard. She is retired and doesn’t want to spend the money on flowers but I think she would love them. These all sound like great ones to start with. Keep your fingers crossed.

  22. Great one! I have beautiful columbine too. I will add it next time. I am trying some others this year that are also supposed to reseed themselves with fervor and I hope they do. Like you I never worry about having too many, I just dig up, give away or relocate as well.
    Amen to the Hurry Spring but winter here can last into May so I won’t hold my breath. 🙂

  23. Nancy Bailey says:

    Your list is great and I would add columbine. I have had great luck with all of the above reseeding prolifically. I mixed my foxglove in with columbine and both have filled my garden with their reseeding. If I don’t want a new plant there I just dig it up and replant it in an empty spot. I love to watch the wild canaries sitting on the tops of the cosmos and coneflowers picking out the seeds. Hurry Spring!

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