Remember the boxes of flower seeds I bought at the Dollar Store earlier this spring? I bought 2 boxes of wildflower seeds and 2 boxes of zinnia seeds and spent a whopping $4 on the lot (each box cost $1). I planted the seeds back in April and the flowers are, in fact, growing... well, sort of.
I planted the majority of the seeds in a rather "wild" area that had never really been used as a planting or flower bed. Even though we did rototill the area before I scattered the seeds, I probably should have waited and rototilled it several more times to help ensure that the "wildflowers" (dare I say "weeds"?) that were already growing there wouldn't come back (they did).
I didn't fertilize or add compost to the planting bed and, although I watered the bed pretty regularly after planting the seeds, I haven't been very good about it since. We've gotten some pretty regular rain, so I was hoping that would be enough. Who knows ... the weeds seem to do ok there without extra watering, right?
Anyway, so maybe it's not a fair experiment because I didn't really take the care of the seeds that I should've, but so far I'm not very impressed. However, I do think I got $4 worth of flowers from the $4 I spent on the seeds!
The zinnias seem to be doing better than the wildflowers (except for the Japanese beetle damage to the leaves) ....
The wildflowers are a different story though...
The wildflowers aren't doing as well as the zinnias. They are generally much smaller plants and flowers (to be expected), but also fewer and farther between. There are some very pretty ones, but so far, just not as many wildflowers as I had expected. I've only counted about 7 or 8 different types of flowers growing (much, much less than what was supposed to be in the flower mixes!). But, we'll see...maybe by the end of the season I'll have a different opinion.
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March 31, 2015
It looks to me like you are having some success with your wildflowers! It does seem that some of them are having a bit more difficult time growing. I want to get some wildflowers planted in my garden, but I want to be sure that they are really quality seeds. It might be worth it to look at different seed mixes to see if I can find some really great wildflower seeds. Thanks for your great post, it was fun to see your different pictures!
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May 5, 2015
I came across your blog after I planted these very same seeds in a wild area of my yard. I'm interested to know how the flowers are coming along. And, did you have any problems with bunnies? If so, what did you do to repel them?
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May 5, 2015
Hi Jessica,
I kind of neglected these last year and, although they did grow and flower some, it wasn't much. I take part of the responsibility for it -- I think they would've done better if I had taken better care of them.
I also planted these in a "wild" area and I mixed a few different boxes of seeds (both wildflower and zinnia) and the zinnia's definitely did better than the wildflowers. I didn't notice any problems with bunnies -- we have tons of rabbits here and they have a lot of other things to eat, so I don't think they bothered with the flowers much.
I hope you have better luck with them!
May 30, 2015
I bought the same wildflower pack and live in South Central Texas and I have mine in a pot, and they are doing well except for these green looking bugs that are leaving spots on the leaves
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