Relax, with happy-go-lucky self-seeders
These easy annuals and perennials create cottage-style colonies loved by bees
Self-seeders often place themselves in just the right spot, pleasing bees, hoverflies and butterflies. You can either leave them to their own devices, or harvest the seeds (on a dry day in early autumn) and keep them from year to year. Calendulas, with crescent-shaped seeds, come in sunny oranges and yellows, and are hoverfly magnets. I’m fond of mahoganycentred single ‘Indian Prince’ and more double, but similar ‘Neon’. Direct sow the cobalt-blue larkspur Consolida regalis ‘Blue Cloud’, for its airy delphinium-like spike of flowers in spring. Add a pinch of nigella too. They’re good in bud and flower, and the seedpods, globular maroon and green sputniks, look amazing. Grey-blue ‘Miss Jekyll’ combines soft blue flowers with feathery foliage while lime green annual bupleurum, sold under names such as ‘Chatterbox’, ‘Garibaldi’ and B. griffithii, offers a cool green background. Nasturtiums, frost-tender annuals with huge child-friendly seeds, are adept at self-seeding too. Modest trailing forms are good at softening edges; the dark foliage of Tropaeolum majus ‘Empress of India’ sets off the rich-orange edible flowers. Lots of perennial plants self-seed freely too and aquilegias love moister soil. These flower in May, filling the gap between spring bulbs and summer flowers. Aquilegia vulgaris ‘Munstead White’ is a stable seed strain that comes true and the greentinged white flowers have an airy elegance. There are frilly doubles, such as ‘Ruby Port’, and ‘Hensol Harebell’ is a good single blue. The smoky, curled foliage of bronze fennel (Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’) is an attractive foil. Early-flowering Geranium macrorrhizum and G. phaeum prefer light shade, have good winter foliage and also self-seed. Dainty wood millet, Melica unif lora albida, a self-seeding grass, looks adorable with hardy ferns, while yellowbeaded Bowles’s golden grass, Milium effusum ‘Aureum’, sways and shimmies above bluebells. Hot, dry borders are perfect for aromatic plants and silver foliage. Lychnis coronaria has a rosette of silver leaves with pure white, vivid or muted pink flowers. Teucrium hircanicum, Caucasian germander, has aromatic crinkled foliage topped by stout spires of purple-red f lowers. Plant it with Linaria dalmatica, a tall lemon-yellow toadflax or the bee-pleasing Malva moschata with pink or white flowers. Many foxgloves obligingly shake their seeds around, but these only germinate in daylight so you may have to dig over the ground to uncover them. Native biennial Digitalis purpurea comes in pink, apricot or white and flowers can be plain or heavily spotted. The perennial rusty foxglove, D. ferruginea, has gently hued butterscotch-lipped f lowers and prefers a brighter position, while willowy D. lutea, with narrow spires of soft-yellow flowers in late spring, suits shade or sun.
Many foxgloves obligingly shake their seeds around