Growing a diverse range of self-seeding plants is the secret to achieving a garden that is both cost-effective and low-maintenance.
18 Self-Seeding Plants You’ll Never Have To Plant Again
Unlike traditional garden varieties that necessitate the collection, storage, and sowing of seeds, self-seeding plants disperse their sturdy seeds during the autumn months, only to reemerge unaided in the springtime.
These self-sufficient plants are often referred to as “volunteers” in the horticultural world because they necessitate no assistance or input from the gardener. They can either be allowed to grow where they have landed, or be moved to a suitable location.
Alternatively, in the fall, seed pods can be collected and distributed in desired areas of the garden. Numerous ornamental and edible plants are capable of self-seeding. Here are some of the most effortless self-seeders to cultivate:Self-Seeding Flowers and Ornamentals
- Morning Glory (Ipomoea spp.)
Morning glory is a plant that features heart-shaped leaves that grow on twining vines, and trumpet-shaped flowers that bloom in shades of purple, pink, blue, red, and white.
These flowers unfurl in the morning sun. This fast-growing plant can reach up to 15 feet in a single season and has a tendency to cling to any available support, including other plants.
Although it is an annual that dies back completely each winter, morning glory has a remarkable self-seeding ability, leading to each generation being more populous than the previous one.
It’s important to keep morning glory in check by uprooting or transplanting seedlings that have strayed too far, so that it doesn’t take over your garden.
Hardiness zone: 3 to 10
Sunlight exposure: Full sun to part shade
- Calendula (Calendula officinalis)
Calendula, also known as pot marigold, is not only visually appealing but also highly beneficial to gardeners. Its golden daisy-like blooms make it a perfect companion plant for various vegetables, such as tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, asparagus, peas, and lettuce.
Additionally, calendula attracts a variety of useful insects to the garden, including bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, as well as predatory insects like ladybugs and lacewings that prey on aphids and other harmful insects.
Its fragrant leaves also act as a natural repellent for mosquitoes and asparagus beetles. Once planted, calendula seeds or starts will continue to grow and repopulate themselves reliably each year, making them an annual flower that requires only one planting. All in all, calendula is an excellent ally for gardeners.
Hardiness zone: 2 to 11
Sunlight exposure: Full sun to part shade
- Field Poppy (Papaver rhoeas)
The common field poppy, famously mentioned in the World War I poem “In Flanders Fields,” is an incredibly sturdy plant that can flourish even in the most war-torn landscapes. This striking flower features papery petals and a distinct black center, with blooms that are usually crimson red, but can occasionally appear in purple or white.
It grows up to 9-18 inches in height on a hairy stem with toothy leaves, and flowers from late spring to early summer. After blooming, its petals fall away to reveal a capsule filled with tiny black seeds.
Once the capsule is fully matured, it bursts open, scattering the seeds far and wide. These seeds will quickly germinate the following season, particularly in disturbed soil. Overall, the common field poppy is a resilient and beautiful flower that can adapt to challenging environments.
Hardiness zone: 3 to 10
Sunlight exposure: Full sun
- Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus)
Cosmos is a stunning annual flower that produces a spectacular show of blooms throughout the entire season, from June until the first frost. These low maintenance plants can grow up to 4 feet tall and feature 8-petaled florets arranged around a sunny yellow center.
The foliage of cosmos is distinctive, with soft, feathery, and needle-like leaves that make the plant easy to identify. Although pink, purple, and white are the most common colors, there are numerous cultivars available that display streaked and rimmed blooms in a wide range of hues.
To keep cosmos blooming for as long as possible, it’s best to deadhead spent flowers. However, if you want to encourage the plant to self-sow, leave some of the spent flowerheads on the plant. This will allow the plant to produce seeds that can germinate and grow in the next season, ensuring a beautiful display of cosmos blooms year after year.
Hardiness zone: 2 to 11
Sunlight exposure: Full sun
- Sweet Alyssum (Lobularia maritima)
Sweet alyssum is a wonderful annual plant that grows low and forms a mat-like shape, quickly filling in empty spaces along border fronts, under plantings, and edgings.
This fragrant plant produces clusters of tiny, honey-scented flowers in a range of colors, including white, pink, yellow, and purple. When in bloom, the flowers are so abundant that they can entirely cover the plant’s lance-shaped grey-green foliage.
Sweet alyssum is a prolific bloomer throughout the growing season, and each seed pod contains two seeds. This allows the plant to easily double its numbers each year, making it an excellent choice for gardeners looking for a low maintenance, self-sustaining plant.
Hardiness zone: 5 to 9
Sunlight exposure: Full sun to part shade
- Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella damascena)
Love-in-a-mist is a stunning and unique plant, characterized by bushy mounds of soft, delicate, thread-like leaves from which single flowers emerge. The blooms range in colors from blues, lavenders, pinks, and whites, creating an enchanting display from June to August.
Love-in-a-mist flowers begin with 5 to 25 sepals surrounding the stamens, eventually developing a distinctive egg-shaped seed pod in the center. The seed capsule is particularly intriguing, with twisted horns, a bristled base, and a purplish hue. By leaving the seed pods on the plant, love-in-a-mist will readily self-sow and provide a bountiful display year after year.
Hardiness zone: 2 to 11
Sunlight exposure: Full sun
- Giant Larkspur (Consolida ajacis)
Giant larkspur is an impressive annual plant that produces tall flower spikes in blue, pink, or white, each boasting 2-inch wide blooms similar to iris flowers.
The blooms have five sepals surrounding the stamens and two upward-facing petals that form a hood over the reproductive organs. Giant larkspur can grow up to 4 feet tall, and the spikes are adorned with many blooms along the stem. Once the two-month blooming period is over, the flowers fade and are replaced by seed pods that hold multiple small black seeds.
Hardiness zone: 2 to 11
Sunlight exposure: Full sun
- Honeywort (Cerinthe major ‘Purpurascens’)
Honeywort, a favorite of bees and hummingbirds, delights with its unique display from spring through fall. The plant boasts succulent blue-green leaves and 2-3 drooping tubular flowers that offer honey-flavored nectar and come in a rich purple color.
The floral clusters are adorned with vibrant bracts that turn bright blue as the temperature drops in the later season. In the fall, the plant disperses large black seeds to ensure the growth of a thriving colony in the following year.Hardiness zone: 2 to 11
Sunlight exposure: Full sun
- Garden Angelica (Angelica archangelica)
Garden angelica is a biennial plant that adds unique textures and shapes to any flower bed. In its second year, it produces compound umbels composed of tiny green-white flowers that form an attractive orb shape.
The multibranched stem can hold many orbs, each 6 inches in diameter, and can reach a height of 6 feet, so make sure to give this plant enough space to grow. Once it has produced seeds, garden angelica will die back, making way for the next generation.
Hardiness zone: 5 to 7
Sunlight exposure: Full sun to part shade
- Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia)
The common blue violet is a perennial wildflower that is native to eastern North America. It is a stemless plant that forms a basal rosette with leaves and blooms appearing directly from its underground rhizomes in late spring.
The flowers, which are about an inch in size, have five dainty petals and range in color from medium to dark violet with a white inner throat. In addition to the showy flowers, the plant also produces cleistogamous flowers, which are self-pollinating buds without petals that produce seeds.
By the end of summer, the seeds are dispersed through mechanical ejection.
Hardiness zone: 3 to 7
Sunlight exposure: Full sun to part shade
Self-Sowing Edible Plants
- Parsley (Petroselinum crispum)
Parsley is commonly grown as an annual and replanted every spring. However, you can make your parsley crop self-sustaining by utilizing its biennial habit. Plant and harvest parsley in the first year, then let it flower and produce seeds in the second year. Although the original plant will eventually die, the abundant self-sowing will result in a perennial parsley patch.
Hardiness zone: 5 to 9
Sunlight exposure: Full sun to part shade
- Dill (Anethum graveolens)
Dill is an annual herb that serves both as a culinary and decorative plant, with fine, feathery foliage that is aromatic. In the flowering stage, it produces flattened umbels of yellow blooms that can reach up to 10 inches in diameter.
These flowers are particularly attractive to various beneficial insects, including bees, butterflies, wasps, and hoverflies. Once the flowers fade, dill produces an abundance of seeds that can self-sow and give rise to new plants the following year.
Hardiness zone: 2 to 9
Sunlight exposure: Full sun
- Arugula (Eruca versicaria)
Arugula, also known as rocket, is a salad green that is planted annually and has a spicy, sharp taste. It is best to harvest the leaves while they are young and tender in early summer, as arugula is a cool season crop that tends to bolt when exposed to midsummer heat. However, you can allow the plant to flower and produce seeds for the next season by leaving the flowers on the plant, which will result in a self-sustaining arugula crop.
Hardiness zone: 5 to 9
Sunlight exposure: Full sun
- Mountain Spinach (Atriplex hortensis)
A great substitute for spinach during the warmer months, mountain spinach or orach is a leafy green with a taste similar to spinach. It can be harvested throughout the season due to its ability to tolerate high temperatures.
Available in red, green, or white leafed varieties, mountain spinach can grow up to 6 feet tall. When it reaches the flowering stage, it produces beautiful flowerheads that eventually turn into branches filled with papery seed pods, with each pod containing a single black seed.
Hardiness zone: 4 to 8
Sunlight exposure: Full sun
- Carrot (Daucus carotasubsp. sativus)
Carrots are a biennial crop that will produce flowers and seeds in their second year of growth. To ensure a self-sustaining crop, leave a few carrots in the ground after harvesting them in the first year. The foliage will die back in winter, but the taproot will survive the cold.
In the following spring, the overwintered carrots will sprout new leaves and produce lovely umbel flowers resembling Queen Anne’s lace. These flowers will eventually mature into seeds that will drop to the soil, providing the next season’s crop.
Hardiness zone: 3 to 10
Sunlight exposure: Full sun
- Lettuce (Latuca sativa)
By harvesting lettuce as a cut and come again crop, taking only a few leaves from each plant at a time, it can continue growing all season long. However, since lettuce thrives in cooler weather, it may start to bolt when temperatures rise. If you let it flower and go through its reproductive cycle, it will produce seeds that can sprout fresh plants in the following year.
Hardiness zone: 4 to 9
Sunlight exposure: Full sun to part shade
- Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum)
For a bountiful harvest of cilantro, it’s recommended to plant it early in the growing season to ensure a good yield of leaves before the summer heat causes it to bolt.
To prolong the harvest, remove any flowers as soon as they appear. However, allowing some to mature and produce seeds will provide you with a new crop. Come fall, you might notice new cilantro seedlings sprouting on their own for a second season of growth, making it an effortless way to practice succession gardening.
Hardiness zone: 2 to 11
Sunlight exposure: Full sun to part shade
- Kale (Brassica oleracea)
Kale, a highly nutritious and cold-resistant vegetable, can produce leafy greens even in temperatures as low as 5°F, making it an excellent choice for cool climates.
During the winter, the plant will go dormant but the root system remains intact and will sprout again when the temperature increases. As a biennial plant, kale will produce flower stalks in its second year. These will be followed by long and slender seed pods that split open and release their seeds.
Hardiness zone: 7 to 10
Sunlight exposure: Full sun
Tips for a Self-Sowing Garden
Here are some recommendations for creating a successful self-sowing garden:
- Choose the right plants: Not all plants are self-seeders, so do your research before selecting species for your garden. Opt for annuals or biennials that are known to reseed themselves.
- Allow for natural dispersal: Let nature take its course and don’t be too quick to clean up your garden at the end of the season. Leave seed heads on plants, and let seed pods dry and split open, releasing their seeds.
- Provide a suitable environment: Self-seeders need specific growing conditions, so make sure your garden has the right soil, sunlight, and moisture levels for the plants you’ve chosen.
- Avoid disrupting the soil: Try not to disturb the soil too much, as this can uproot young seedlings. Instead, use mulch or organic matter to nourish the soil and protect seeds from the elements.
- Plan for succession: Plan your garden so that self-seeders are allowed to mature and drop their seeds before the next planting season begins. This will ensure a continuous supply of new seedlings and a thriving self-sowing garden.
- Opt for heirloom cultivars Choose open-pollinated, heirloom cultivars that will produce offspring identical to their parent plants. Avoid F1 hybrid seeds, which do not come true to type in the next generation.
- Allow some flowers to go to seed While removing spent flowers can encourage more blooms, leave some on the plant to disperse their seeds naturally.
- Learn to distinguish between weeds and self-seeded plants It’s important to be familiar with the growth stages of your self-seeding plants so you can tell them apart from weeds. Wait until the seedlings have grown their first true leaves before deciding whether to keep or remove them.
Create a self-seeding vegetable patch
To make it easier to manage your self-seeding vegetables and their volunteers, it’s recommended to dedicate a specific area of your garden for them. Leave the soil in these beds undisturbed until later in the spring to give the new seedlings a chance to grow.
Check the compost for volunteers
Don’t overlook the possibility of finding volunteer plants in unexpected places, such as seeds dropped by birds or carried by the wind. One common spot to find them is in your compost heap. Tomato, squash, cucumber, and watermelon seeds can germinate from the discarded remnants of these fruits. Consider transplanting these volunteers into your garden as a fun experiment to see how they thrive.
