12 Flowers That Multiply Themselves! | Perennials that Self Seed to Grow Your Garden Easy & Free.

Want free plants that come back year after year? No replanting, no fuss? Today I'm going to share with you self-seeding perennials that do all of the work for you. They pop up, spread naturally, and make your garden look fuller season after season. Hi, it's Steph. Welcome back to my garden. I have several perennials that have self-seeded beautifully for me, and I'm going to share them all with you. But before we get started, I want to establish two ground rules that you need to be aware of for perennials to self-seed. One of them is that you might be tempted to deadhead your plants because we're at that point in the season where your blooms might start to look tired and dried out, and you'll want to cut those out to clean up your plant. But if you want them to self-seed, you do need to leave some of the blooms on the plant to dry out and create seed so that they'll drop and give you new plants. The second rule is that if you have very thick mulch in your beds, you will need to break it away from the plant that you want to self-seed or just make sure that you have exposed soil so that once your seeds drop, they will germinate and create new plants. Now with that out of the way, let's get into it. You can see here in this bed that my coneflowers or echinacea look absolutely beautiful, and these are a plant that have self-seeded really well in my garden for me. They are gorgeous, the pollinators love them, and they're super easy to get new plants from. So if you have echinacea in your garden, leave some of the spent blooms up to drop seed and before long you will have a bunch of new plants that you can either move around the garden or share with friends. As I'm walking by the echinacea, I noticed that I actually have a few that have self-seeded, and right here you can see this is self-seeded echinacea. Now if you're newer to gardening, you might have a hard time discerning what is a self-seeded perennial from a weed, but after a while you'll get familiar with the foliage structure and you'll be able to tell. So I know that this is an echinacea seedling, this is part of my scabiosa plant, this is a weed that I can pull out, and these are weeds as well as that. So you can tell which ones are perennials and which ones are weeds after you have some experience in your garden. And the next perennial is alliums, and I'm not talking about the bulbs that you plant in fall that bloom in spring. These are the summer blooming perennial alliums that come in clumps, and I have a beautiful group here. These are gorgeous, they have these round sphere-shaped blooms and they're deer and rabbit resistant because they're part of the onion family, so they don't touch them. And you can see right here that I have another group of three, and what I want to show you is that originally I only planted three groups here and now I have a fourth clump right back there, and that is completely self-seeded. It grew me a whole other clump of plants that I can then dig up and move somewhere else in the garden or share with friends. Now I originally noticed these small blades of grass that looked to be grass because the lawn is pretty close, but I realized that as they grew they were actually perennial alliums. So this is another really great self-seeding perennial. Now we're in the back of the same bed and I have liatris, also known as gay feather. This is a really beautiful spike type perennial that also self-seeds readily for me in my garden. I have been able to dig some up, share it with friends, and it just keeps on growing and going. It is beautiful. You can see here that the pollinators also love it. It comes in several heights as well as the color white and even some in pink, but I have this beautiful purple variety and it has been a really great self-seeding perennial. Here in my main walkway border I have about three perennials in this corner that I'm going to show you that self-seed readily, starting with the shasta daisy. Now this is a beautiful staple perennial. It's a quintessential cottage garden flower and really one that belongs in any garden. It is stunning and it's one that readily self-seeds. Now here's a perfect example of a flower that looks like it's ready to be deadheaded. You can see that the bloom is not as fresh, the center is starting to go brown, and this will continue to dry out. And this is a bloom that you would go through and cut, but if you want this plant to self-seed, leave some of these blooms on the plant to dry out and drop seed. This is one that has grown itself around my garden. I have this clump here and I have two more down this border that have just popped up from the plant self-seeding. And right here is another perennial. This is garden phlox. Now several years ago, I would say upwards of maybe five or six years ago, I did have a shorter variety of a hot pink phlox that used to live in this bed. Well I have dug it all up and I didn't have any signs of it for the last few years, but this year I had this version that is much taller show up in this spot. And it is a bit different in color, it's a little bit more muted, but phlox is another plant that will self-seed and grow itself really well. So this is a really beautiful pink variety. And I'll show you in the back garden where the mother plant is. So sometimes the wind or the birds will drop seed and you will get a plant growing further away from where the original or mother plant was. And that is also a great thing because you get these surprise plants pop up. Salvia. And there are several varieties of salvia. I happen to grow the main night and I have several clumps up and down this border. But recently I noticed that I have a baby plant right here growing on the edge of the walkway. So I could dig this up and move it or pass it along to a friend. But this is a great spike type perennial. The pollinators absolutely love it and pests like deer and rabbit don't touch it. So I have a clump of salvia right there that could have self-seeded here. And I also have a huge clump right here in the corner that is now past its prime, but I can insert some footage of what it looked like earlier in the season. This is another really great self-seeding perennial. Rudbeckia, also known as black-eyed susans. Well I have a clump right here that grew itself. Last year I had a bunch of foliage. I let it go and this year it's going to bloom. Now I don't have rudbeckia anywhere else in this bed, but I do on the bed on the other side of the porch. So let's go take a look. And here in this border is where I have two large clumps of rudbeckia or black-eyed susans. You can see that this clump has gotten pretty large and it continues to grow each year and it has tons of buds on it. In about another week or two it's going to be loaded with beautiful golden yellow flowers like this that the pollinators love. And it is also deer and rabbit resistant. And continuing in the same bed I have this beauty here which is platycodon. This is also known as balloon flower. It has these really cool buds that kind of look like a bubble and as they open up you get these really beautiful blooms. Now this I had in my garden several years ago in a different border and then it self-seeded itself here and I've just let it go. Now this comes in shades of purple, in pink, and in white. And it's another perennial that will drop seed and continue to give you more plants. And right behind the balloon flower is another clump of phlox. And this clump of phlox just self-seeded itself there and it came from this main clump right here. So you can see how things will just drop seed and grow wherever they're happy. And those plants are usually the strongest and the happiest because when the seed drops it hits some exposed soil, it roots itself in, and it wants to grow there. So those plants I find do really well for me. And in this sea of perennials I have quite a few more that I want to share with you that also self-seed. This in the front that is now ready to be deadheaded is called beer tongue or penstemon. And even the seed pods are actually really pretty and can be used in cut flower arrangements. But this is the stage where you want to leave your seed pods up for them to dry out. Once they get dry they will crack open and drop seed. And when they do you will get new plants. And my bed is pretty thickly planted so it's hard to see but right back here I have a clump of penstemon. It's hard for me to show you but I do trust me. I've gotten more penstemon from just leaving these seed heads up. This was gorgeous just a few weeks ago. I can insert some footage from my last garden tour. But penstemon is also another perennial that readily self-seeds. And you can see that I have more shasta daisies that have grown themselves. And in the mix here I have another beauty that is called rose campion. Now this was given to me by my sister-in-law and initially I was afraid of it because it dropped seed and I got a ton of baby seedlings everywhere. But I have come to love this plant and now I let it self-seed. And let me show you what a seedling of rose campion looks like. And this is a seedling that is very easy to recognize because it has this silvery fuzzy foliage that is very similar to say like a And that is rose campion seedlings. It's a really pretty carnation-like flower. It also comes in this magenta shade that I have. Pink and even in white. And it is one that once you start seeing all of the seed heads like this you can leave them to drop seed or you can deadhead them and just leave a couple so that you just get a few extra seedlings each year. And now we're in the backyard and this is a part shade part sun area. And so far all of the perennials that I have shown you are full sun. But here is one that can deal with sun or part sun and it is the alcamilla mollus or ladies mantle. Now this is a bit past its prime but this is the stage where you would let these bloom heads continue to dry out and drop seed so that you can get more perennials. This is a really beautiful foliage plant as well. So if you wanted this to self-seed for you you would just leave the plants to dry out at this stage and you could either collect seeds and scatter them in the garden or just let them self-seed where they wish. And right here in my shed bed this happens to be a part shade bed. And this spring I had some beautiful aqualasia or columbine blooming here. It was a double variety in a dainty bloom that was just stunning and I wanted more of it. I noticed as I was working in this bed this spring that I had some seedlings. So as I cut through or cut down the rest of them I did leave this one up to self-seed. You can see here that the bloom pods are now seed pods and they have seeds in them that will drop and create more plants for me in this area. Look at that. So I will just drop these in this bed and I will get more plants next season. Let me show you what one of these seedlings look like. They also have very distinct foliage. All right I'm climbing through all these plants it's getting pretty full around here. But if you look down right in this area you can see this right here is a columbine seedling. You can tell because the foliage almost looks like a clover. It has these three lobes. So this here is clover that is a weed. So I can pull this out but this one I would not want to weed out because this right here is a columbine seedling. And right there is a plant of columbine and you can compare the foliage to see what you're dealing with. Those look identical. So my garden assistant and cameraman George, my husband here, tells me that these look identical to the columbine. But after you've been gardening for a little while you get more of a discerning eye and you can really tell the difference. So you can see that the clover looks like a actual heart where the columbine leaf, we're going to go ahead and compare it, has a little bit of a cut in the leaf. So let me grab one to show you. So here is the difference. Let me get rid of that. So here is a weed which is a clover and here is the columbine. You can tell that there is a difference in the foliage. So although very similar, they're different. George thinks everything looks like a weed. I mean you could go with a when in doubt pull it out or you can leave it alone and see what happens. This clover will end up getting a little yellow bloom on it which if you let it bloom it'll drop more seed and you'll get more clover weeds. So I do like to pull them at this stage but there is definitely a difference between the two. If you're ever in doubt, you can take a photo of the plant or what you think might be a weed. Use Google Lens on your phone. I have a video that I did on that I can link below and it'll identify it for you so that you know what you're dealing with. I am a mess right now. I am sweaty, it is hot and it is July and our gardens are looking a little bit tired but as you can see there is no shortage of perennials that will self-seed and create even more beautiful plants for you. This is just a small sampling of all of the perennials that are out there that will self-seed and grow your garden with no effort on your part. Let me know in the comments if there are any plants in your garden that self-seed and that grow readily without you putting in any effort. It's great to share those with different people because we all grow different things in our gardens. So thank you so much for spending your time with me and I will catch you in the next one.