Self Seeding Annual Plants for a Cottage Garden

Self seeding annuals are a great way to cut down on the work, expense, and waste of a cottage garden filled with your favorite blooms year after year. Planting and maintaining a beautiful cottage garden with annuals can be an expensive and time consuming project if you have to purchase flowers that will only live for a single season and then need to be replanted all over again the following year.

Gardeners and homeowners that are concerned about the amount of waste their gardens and purchases produce can significantly reduce that amount by investing in self seeding plants that eliminate the need to purchase flowers from nurseries each year. Once the flowers in your garden have finished blooming they will drop their seeds onto the soil of your garden and reappear in the spring or summer.

Self seeding annuals are the perfect choice for cottage gardens because they reappear in random places and numbers, much in the way a cottage garden is designed. The following annuals are all great self seeding and perfect for a cottage garden design.

Cosmos
Cosmos are the flower of beginner gardeners because they are easy to grow from seed and thrive in just about every garden setting. The bright colored flowers sit on top of three to four foot tall stems that are very leafy, but still dainty. You can grow cosmos in just about any color, white, pink, reds, yellows, and purples. Add the seeds or starter plants to a well sifted garden bed, and allow the spent blooms to drop their seeds before clearing garden beds in the fall.

Larkspur
Like other flowers in its family, Larkspurs are tall, stately and early bloomers. The beauty of larkspur is that the plant will be full grown and full of beautiful, bright purple blooms while the rest of your garden is just beginning to wake up. To encourage self seeding, do not disturb the garden bed where seeds can fall. Instead wait until mid to late spring to clear any garden debris and leaves that find their way into beds, when the seeds will have already germinated.

Bachelor Buttons
Best grown from seed, bachelor buttons are a compact flower that are great for borders, rocky areas and filling in gaps that other plants have a hard time thriving in. This annual will bloom over and over again throughout summer if you pick off the spent flowers, but towards the end of summer allow the last set of blooms to die on the plant so that they will drop their seeds.

Zinnia
Zinnia flowers come in many different colors and varieties, but it is the single flowered variety that is self seeding, because it is easier for the seeds to drop. The plants thrive in full sun, high heat areas, but must be well watered in order to survive. Allow the last blooms of the season, those in late summer to early fall, to die on the plant so that they will drop their seeds in the soil.