Hello Friends!
Is your garden still blooming? As I write this, ours still have fresh flowers coming in but that frost is coming sooner than we’d like to admit.
This year will be our first Fall with taking care of our wildflower garden. Since we are so obsessed with it, we want to make sure that we take the best care of it. We’ve been doing loads of research and here are the top four tips to make sure you do.
- Cut off Flowering Flowers Before Frost
This is a tip that we came up with — no one talked about this in any of the articles we found. One reason it’s important for us this year is because we sowed our seeds so late and there will be flowering still when the frost comes. Make sure to cut off all the still flowering flowers to enjoy them inside when it gets too cold for them outside.
- Take Out Weeds
Doing this tip now will really cut down your work in the spring. If you pluck out all the weeds, being careful to not spread the seeds, there will be less to pull out in the spring. If you are not sure if the plant is a weed or more wildflowers, then I suggest you pull it just in case. Especially considering step four and you don’t want to spread more weeds.
- Collect Seed Heads
I am absolutely obsessed with the wildflower mix that we got and want to make sure we can get as close to the same mix next year as we have this year. Once the flowers have died, I make sure to pop off the flower heads and saves them and dry them to spread next spring. I am careful to make sure not to let any of the seeds drop as it is too cold here in NH for the seeds to winter over in abundance.
- Cut Down All Wildflower Stems
This tip is really easy! You get to cut the wildflowers to about 4-6 inches with a lawn mower. You want to make sure that you don’t cut the stems too low down as they protect any seeds that have dropped to the ground. Once the wildflowers are cut the nutrients will go back into the ground to help with next years growth. If you live in a warmer climate you can skip collecting the seed heads in step three and just cut right over them. They will winter outside and start growing as soon as the ground starts to thaw.
Do you have a wildflower garden? What do you do to take care of them in the Fall? Tell us in the comments — we’d love to hear from you!
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