Some gardeners are very careful about which plants they try to grow in their garden and prefer reliable, recommended ones, while other gardeners don’t mind a little trial and error with the plants they choose to cultivate. Also, some gardeners, especially those whose gardens border woods, prairies, and other rural areas, will have wildflowers drift into their gardens, and some will let the wildflowers stay and some will not.
If you are a gardener who will tolerate, and perhaps even welcome, some wildflowers into your garden, you might be able to have an enjoyable experience with the mixture. In fact, pairing different wildflowers with cultivated ones can be a fun way to achieve some interesting focal points in your garden.
Wild and Cultivated Roses
If land is cleared for a homesite or garden in the country, often wild roses and blackberry bushes will eventually return to the area. Wild roses are difficult to eradicate, and some people prefer to have them around! Cultivated roses, depending on the type one chooses, can be easy to grow, and they are definitely one of the flowers that most rewards the grower – with their fragrance, beauty, and hardiness.
Wild roses can be an attractive, less showy pairing for your cultivated roses. The climbing variety looks beautiful on a trellis or other tall garden ornament. If none are growing on your property, and you know someone who has some country land, ask permission, take a shovel, and go out and dig up a wild rose bush or two.
Fleabane and Daisies
Most people are familiar with the fields of white flowers blooming widely in the early summer. These wildflowers, fleabane, make an impressive display, which when drifting into a home garden, are usually plucked out. But pairing these wildflowers, often called white tops, with cultivated daisies makes an eye-catching oasis of calming white.
Another plus for this oft-maligned wildflower is that fleabane, which will spread quickly, is shallow-rooted and very easy to simply pull out of the ground without disturbing other plants around it. So, if it becomes invasive or you simply decide you don’t like it, just pull it out.
Black-Eyed Susans and Coneflowers
Besides fields of white fleabane, another common summer sight is a yellow carpet of black-eyed Susans spreading across uncultivated prairies and plains areas. Many varieties of this wildflower have also been cultivated, and if you buy them from a nursery, you will find that the leaves and flower heads are much larger than those growing wild. Also, wild black-eyed Susans usually have hairy leaves, while cultivated ones do not.
Coneflowers also grow wild, but the cultivated ones are tall, majestic, and complementary to the wild black-eyed Susans. White or even light purple coneflowers blend well with black-eyed Susans. Both flowers are from the composite (Rudbeckia) family.
In his field guide Oklahoma Wildflowers, Doyle McCoy says of wildflowers, “Even the most casual observer is impressed with the beauty and diversity of their sparkling array of colors.” While many people consider wildflowers to be “weeds,” they can be a source of delight – even in one’s own garden.
Reference:
McCoy, Doyle. Oklahoma Wildflowers. Oklahoma City: Ebsco Graphics, 1987.
Shaun Perkins - Shaun Perkins, teacher, poet, storyteller, porch-sitter, beekeeper, gardener, writer, has been a high school and university teacher for ...
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