Doesn’t the idea of a meadow of Florida wildflowers sound dreamy? Well, I have been wanting one for some time now. Received my mail order seeds from Florida Wildflowers Growers Cooperative and it cooled down to be one of the best times to plant.
In this video, I sort through and categorize the seeds by planting season and height. I tried to stay with a minimal palette of pink, white, lavender, and yellow… so no orange or red this time. I do love the way orange and lavender gardens look and really need to set aside a space for that!
Super excited about the liatris, joe pye weed, phlox, coreopsis, ironweed, elliot’s love grass, beebalm, wiregrass, spiderwort, baptisia, prairie iris, beach sunflower, milkweed, gallardia and more! I also planted some of the seeds in my sun garden, as I did last year. I need to get more phlox and black-eyed susans! I did watch another video on Florida Wildflowers and there are still a few more beautiful flowers I would like to try out. One note about the baptisia. It has a hard shell so best germination rates will occur with scarification… meaning, the seed coating needs to be nicked prior to planting for best results.
I missed the opportunity to solarize the weeds, so I extracted them the good ol’ fashioned way… with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. I wound up replenishing some of the dirt with a sprinkle of top soil, even though these flowers love growing in sugar sand.
After sprinkling the seeds in an intuitive fashion, with larger plants towards the back and shorter ones in the front and an informed yet freestyle layout of colors and clumps, I cover the area with a light layer of pine needles, water and wait! I may come back to succession plant in 3-4 weeks and can even plant some of these in the spring. I even wound up planting a few seeds in my regular full-sun garden.
I had so many seeds leftover, that I intend to do it all over again in another space…. tomorrow!
If nothing, we gardeners list patience as one of our top virtues. Can’t wait to share the photos of these beauties in bloom.
Happy gardening!
Gallery of plants used in this wildflower garden (images from https://www.floridawildflowers.com/ until I can photograph my own…except phlox with coreopsis and wiregrass… that’s from my garden last spring)
