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Creating a Native Wildflower Garden in Your Central Florida Yard

Episode #4
Release Date: March 11, 2024

Learn about what plants to grow, how to start them, how to maintain them, and different ways you can enjoy wildflowers all summer right in your own back (or front) yard!

Episode Transcript:

ANNE
Welcome to today's episode on growing wildflowers in your Central Florida yard. Today, we'll discuss some tips to help you get started on adding wildflowers to your yard.

JULIE
Welcome to Your Central Florida Yard, the podcast series where we explore how to successfully garden in the unique climate of Central Florida. Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just starting out, this podcast is for you. So grab your shovel and get ready to dig in. This podcast is brought to you by UF/IFAS Extension Polk County.

ANNE
So what comes to mind when you think about wildflowers? Probably bright, vibrant color, natural areas. Maybe you've seen those along roadsides throughout Florida. To me, they're happy and cheerful, have many small blooms that sometimes you have to get really up close to appreciate, which makes them great for yards and they make a really big impact in large patches that you've seen along those those roadsides as well.

Today we're going to talk about different ways to bring that joy of wildflowers into your own yard. We'll discuss what plants to grow, how to start them, a little bit about maintenance and different ways you can enjoy wildflowers all summer, right in your own back or front yard. Okay, so why plant wildflowers in your yard? I mean, I like how they look. I like to bring some of that natural look into my own landscape.

JULIE
I think a lot of people are conscious and want to support wildlife as well. And so by planting these native wildflowers, we can support our native animals and insects and other species as well.

ANNE
Yeah, and probably some of that all flows right into giving people a sense of place. You've been out in these natural areas, you've driven by, you've seen things you like, things you enjoy throughout natural Florida. And so you want to support that and bring that home as well and kind of make your yard part of a bigger picture.

JULIE
Well, if any of those reasons have inspired you to want to plant, I think it's important to look at what can we actually plant. And so there's many varieties that bloom from spring to fall here in Central Florida. So let's talk about a few of those.

ANNE
We're going to talk about what you could plant starting from seed. And if we're planting seed in the fall in Central Florida we would look at things that were blooming next summer. And we'll provide a short list of some of our favorite flowers. I like beach sunflower. That's a nice yellow flowering plant. It starts blooming pretty early in the spring when it warms up and will take you all the way through fall. Very drought tolerant. Great on our sandy soils. So anybody that has trouble growing plants in sandy soil, hot sun, beach sunflower’s certainly one to add to any landscape.

Additionally, starry rosinweed is another one that is yellow flowering that is great for so many different uses in the landscape. It's easy to fill in behind other perennials. It's got another cheery yellow flower. Now beach sunflower has a kind of dark center where starry rosinweed has a yellow center. So combining that with purples and pinks in your landscape is really pretty. Another one that's really, really drought tolerant. So again, good for us in Central Florida. And then I guess to round out my plants that are yellow, black-eyed Susan is another one that's great for all landscapes, clumping about a foot tall, another great one for dryer yards, sandy soils. Combining it with some of our native salvias or some of the plants that Julie will talk about in a minute, would be great for just a variety of landscapes in sunny yards.

JULIE
Yeah, a few that I think to consider as well. First would be blanket flower. And so this easily reseeds. It looks really great in a nice large clump or cluster, brings that bright red and orange to the landscape. One thing to note it's not actually considered a native anymore. We still consider it a great wildflower, but it has been reclassified. It's not native to Florida, but it is still native to other parts of the United States.

Our state flower is a great option too, coreopsis another yellow flower and with coreopsis there's several several species. So you've got some that tolerate really drought, sandy areas versus some that tolerate more wet areas. Again, they are our native wildflower and our state is very variable.  So we've got a lot of variety with coreopsis if you're interested in that. And then I would also consider twinflower. So if you're looking for something low growing that's going to have a purple or a light kind of purple or lavender flower, this is going to be a good option for you as well.

ANNE
And then as we move into fall, we'll start to see some different wildflowers popping up. And those could also be started from seed that we'll talk about here shortly. We'll see blazing star Liatris. That's a great plant. Very tall, very straight. Kind of a narrow shape with thin leaves. But the flower is very attractive. It's kind of a purple kind of a spike flower.

We'll work with any of those plants we we just talked about. And also we'll see asters and some of these other things start blooming as we move into our fall into our cooler months in Florida. And we'll provide a list of all of these wildflowers for summer to fall in Central Florida in our show notes after the episode.

So many of these flowers do span multiple seasons, and you can use those in different ways throughout the landscape by adding in other perennials to get that spring through fall bloom season kind of going in your landscape the whole time. Again, if you're talking about providing for insects and wildlife, we want to provide for them all year round and using those plant lists that we provide along with those, those varying flowering times will really help out those animals and insects.

JULIE
So I also like blazing star. I think a lot of people assume Florida doesn't have seasonal change, and I think anyone who spends any time out in the garden or outside would absolutely know. And so blazing star is one of those flowers that tells you, hey, fall is here in Florida.

ANNE
Yeah, Julie, I've actually noticed that the blazing star is starting to kind of start growing and get ready to bloom in the next month or so, and I think that's a good indicator. And I think that people actually seek out those things for seasonal change in Central Florida, too. There's, you know, certain things, although different than in other states that are important for those seasonal changes.

And one of the places you can see a lot of these native plants that we've mentioned is in the demo gardens that we have at our extension office in Bartow. Also consider visiting Bok Tower Gardens and and seeing their display of Liatris Blazing Star, and maybe even some of the trails. Places like Colt Creek State Park will also have wildflowers that you'd see them in their natural area, but they would give you a good example of what they looked like if you've never seen them before.

And a lot of these flowers actually span multiple seasons, I mean, they'll grow spring through fall, but then those indicator plants for those new seasons, like blazing star, will help us as we move into our fall season and start to see some of that different look of our landscape. So planting to provide that seasonal change is really important.

JULIE
Yeah. And I think we sometimes forget, but there's even native wildflowers that survive in these semi-aquatic conditions, you know, around our ponds and lakes and so one example is pickerel weed. And so the common name is pickerel weed. But it's absolutely a beautiful native wildflower/aquatic plant and it has these beautiful light purple flowers on this stalk. Absolutely stunning. Great pollinators enjoy it as well so you can help support pollinators with that. And then Lobelia also known as cardinal flower, is absolutely beautiful. In the fall, bright red flowers, attractive of course to hummingbirds. And I'm sure some other pollinators enjoy it. But definitely if you're looking to add variety and you have, you know, a pond or a lake or a manmade, you know, little pond in your yard, these semi-aquatic native wildflowers absolutely add that color and that native wildflower aspect to the garden as well.

ANNE
Yeah. And I think if you're wanting to see pickerel weed, most of the lakes around Central Florida have it growing naturally. So it's really obvious when it's in flower. You see that kind of solid purple mass along those, those lake fronts. That's really pretty. And the lobelia is just stunning when you see that in person. I think if you were to find that in aquatic area, it's a really big red bloom. That's just so pretty to add to any aquatic landscape.

So we've talked about, why we might want to plant wildflowers and some different ones that might work in a home landscape. And so how do we get started? There's a couple different ways to start wildflowers and one is from seed. And I know a lot of people have seen, you know, seed packets or different varieties that are available for purchase. It's really hard to know what's in some of those seed packets, and also what time of year to plant those seeds as well, because it is very particular in central Florida. And so the best time of year for Central Florida gardeners to start adding wildflowers from seed to their yard is October through November. And that is for those species that are going to flower in the summer, the following summer.

So those things like the beach sunflower and the coreopsis that we just talked about, we're planting those seeds right now. So again, it's just kind of hard to remember that as we're we're looking at planting seeds, they’re for next summer. And we're also looking for local seeds. We want to make sure that the wildflower seeds that we're purchasing actually contain wildflowers that are native to Florida.  So make sure you're looking at those seed packets that you're purchasing and making sure some of those wildflowers that we have listed are on that seed packet.

And additionally, you can collect seeds. So if you have some of these wildflowers growing, you can certainly harvest those in the fall when the plants kind of start to die back a little bit, you can select seed and save that and sow that again throughout your landscape. And we are looking at planting a mix of wildflowers. So we talked about bloom times you know spanning from from spring to fall. And so we kind of want to see that in our mix as well. So when you're looking at that seed packet look for something that's going to bloom maybe early summer, mid-summer and then have some available varieties for late fall as well.

So site prep is a little bit different than planting landscape plants when you're looking at starting wildflower seeds. And UF/IFAS has a lot of recommendations and information on how to start wildflower garden or small plot in your landscape, and we can provide links to those publications in our show notes. But site prep is really important. We want to clear the area that we're going to be planting, and this could be large lawn areas, very small areas in the garden.

So it really this the site prep is for any size landscape. We want to remove that vegetation. So mow it, pull it, use an herbicide. Those are all options. You can even solarize the soil. And that's something that's done in the summer months. And we have recommendations on that as well that we can provide. So that would be covering the soil for the area you're going to plant in October, so that everything has been killed back and will be prepped for those seeds to go in.

So we have our area prepped and clean. There is no vegetation there and we don't want to till anything at that point. We want everything cleared out of the way. So we have our kind of raw ground and we're going to broadcast our seeds in that area. So kind of just toss them out kind of in a fine layer on the top of that clean soil and then pat them down.

So nothing to do after that. We just want to to leave them as they are. We don't want to cover them with soil or mulch or anything like that. So again, very different than planting any other type of plant in your landscape. So pat it down, don't cover it up and just kind of water it lightly and monitor that water as we move throughout the fall months into spring, when sometimes we don't have that rainfall to allow those seeds to to propagate.

JULIE
So I think with all of those steps, it's important to remember planting wildflowers from seeds is going to take some preparation. It's not something that's going to happen within 30 or even 60 days, right? We're having to plan several months in advance for those native wildflowers because they need that overwintering. Even though our winters in Central Florida are so mild, those seeds still need that time to germinate in the spring and so we have to prep in the fall for that.

ANNE
So when we start talking about starting wildflowers from seed in a landscape, it is a lot different than starting other types of plants in your landscape.

JULIE
Well, if you don't have the patience to wait for a wildflower garden from fall to spring, you might want to start with some plants. And so you can actually purchase plants of wildflowers that are already grown. You'll find these easily at one of our local native nurseries, and there's several here in Central Florida. And so if you have any trouble finding, feel free to contact your local extension office and they can help point you in the direction of what to look for when you're looking for a local native nursery.

So with these plants that you're going to purchase, if that's how you're going to start your wildflower garden, you want to make sure that you dig a planting hole for the plants to install them. Make sure that the hole is wide and just as deep as the size of the root ball. This is absolutely essential for plants. Often we plant plants improperly and that can lead to the decline.

So this is an absolute necessary step to give your wildflower plants the proper start. So make sure when you, after you've dug the hole, backfill with the native soils, water in and mulch. So keep in mind with native plants, they often don't need a lot of additional organic material. So our soils are often just fine. And so that soil that you dug out to provide the hole is perfectly fine to put back in.

ANNE
Yeah and I wanted to mention too Julie that some of our native plants, in particular our native milkweed, those are going to die back in the winter months as well. So when we're thinking about what we're going to plant and how it does growing through to the next season when it starts flowering, that we may be putting things in now that could die back to the ground in a month or so, that would then come back again next year.

So just being really mindful of that lifecycle of the native plants is really important that many of them do start to decline at the end of the season, only to come back again next season. So don't be discouraged if you, you know, put in a native plant and it looks like it's dying back when we get to, you know, December or something like that, that it will come back again and just give it some time.

And the seeds again will take time as well. A lot of these wildflowers also will do pretty well in a container. So if you find, you know, 2 or 3 native plants at your local nursery that you want to give a try in a container, you plant them very similarly to as you would in the ground.

And that might be an option for a little bit of additional color at this time of year as well. With the maintenance of a native plant, the seeded area will be a little bit different than other landscape plants that you have. So we've planted this area with seeds that are then going to come up. But what's going to come up with them, weeds for sure.

So that's going to be really tricky to maintain, because this isn't going to be an area where we're going to be pulling everything if we can't tell what it is, and we're not going to be spraying any type of herbicide that will kill our wildflowers that are coming up. So just kind of learn to identify those weeds. You can hand pull them if you're sure they're weeds as they're coming up.

If you're not sure, you can leave them be until they start to flower and it's really obvious what it is. So do a little research on that to make sure that you're not going through and pulling up all those wildflowers that are coming up.  As they start to grow and become larger, those wildflowers will naturally take over those weeds that may be interspersed in that area.  And so then it will just make it a little bit easier to maintain.

JULIE
And I would say, I've heard people mention it's nice to put a sign out. If you've just seeded an area for wildflowers, you can make a really cute sign that says wildflower sleeping or dormant right now, you can get really creative if you enjoy making signs like that. Another resource as you get used to growing wildflowers and their seasonality and dying back and growing, the Florida Wildflower Foundation actually has a great resource to help you identify wildflower seedlings.  They have a document titled their Seedlings Image Project, and so it has photos of those seedlings to help you navigate. Is this a weed or is this a wildflower that I intended to plant?

ANNE
That's a great resource. I think that will be really helpful for people, as they've planted a mix of wildflowers and aren't sure what anything is. And I think the main thing is to just keep that area protected, like you said, with a sign. So you remember that this is the wildflower area. If you have people that maintain your landscape, that's also really important to make sure they don't come in and start treating things as well.

So a sign and then that help identifying when it comes time to hand pulling weeds is really important. So as those wildflowers come up and they get kind of to their end of the season, which would be kind of happening now for a lot of those summer flowering wildflowers is, we want to cut them back to the ground.

They kind of naturally kind of peter out towards the end of the year anyway. You'll see a lot of them growing seed heads. And so those can either be removed and you can save those to reseed where you want them around your yard, or you can kind of leave those seed heads, you can cut back the plant, kind of shake the seed heads on the ground and let them naturally kind of be there.

You certainly don't have to cut back any of those flowers as well. You can kind of leave those and they will will come back. But if you kind of want to direct where those seeds, those plants come up again the next year, collecting and sowing yourself is pretty important.

If you have an area of wildflowers large enough to mow, you can mow that six inches high in the winter months. There are also some guidelines as far as routine maintenance for mowing these areas as well, because they'll have some other things growing up in them and hand weeding really isn’t an option.

JULIE
As we wrap up, I want to leave you with this episode's garden checklist for growing wildflowers.

ANNE
Choose plants that match your site conditions just like you would any other plant you're installing in your landscape. So make sure that if you select beach sunflower, for example, that you have a hot, sunny location. So always check those resources and make sure you're matching site conditions. Sun plants with sun, etc. and also consider maybe your level of experience or willingness to do some of this work.

So if you feel like adding a seated area to your landscape, it's just going to be too much right now. Maybe head on over to the local native nursery and pick out a couple of native plants that you can add to your landscape to kind of get started. So I think there's a level of checklist for everybody gardening, from adding one potted plant to starting a larger area that is seeded. There's kind of something for everyone.

And then the second thing that we want to do to kind of look at when we talk about growing wildflowers is when you finally figure out what you want to plant in your yard this fall, consider sharing that with us and tagging us on social media with your answer. And maybe we can provide some ideas and inspiration for other people that are kind of wondering how they might get started adding native wildflowers to their landscape.

As you add plants to your landscape this fall, consider sharing and tagging us on social media with what you've done. We're at Polk Gardening, and you can kind of give some inspiration to your fellow gardeners here in Central Florida and kind of give them some ideas of things that might work in their yards as well. For more information on what wildflowers grow best in your county, workshops and other resources to help you get started, contact your local extension service.

Utilize the resources on the Florida Wildflower Foundation website. Contact your local native plant, nursery or native plant society. There's lots of great resources to help you get wildflowers growing in your yard.

Thanks for listening to Your Central Florida yard. We hope this episode has provided you with valuable insights and tips for your gardening journey in this unique part of the state. Your Central Florida Yard is produced by Anne Yasalonis and Julie Schelb. If you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, find our contact information in the show notes.

This podcast is brought to you by the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, an equal opportunity institution. Thank you for listening. And as always, happy gardening.

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Transcribed by J. Bayer-Fermier - 10/02/24

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