Five Self-seeding Plants that will Enhance your Garden

Self-seeding plants offer a lot with only a little effort. They show up where you need them and fill in blank spots. Filling these spots is visually satisfying but it can also benefit your garden by crowding out weeds, preventing erosion, and attracting even more pollinators. Self-seeding plants also impart a sense of joy, wonder and surprise to gardening. 

So I’ve put together a list of a few favorites that are thriving in my New England garden right now, in later September. Photos and a few thoughts on each below. 

Bog Sage (Salvia uliginosa) 

Airy blue flowers float on delicate, stems, these plants a pollinator magnets and can offer a delicate touch to cut flower bouquets. Also, does not need a bog to grow, but it may be a invasive in some areas so check you state resources.  And a bonus: its pictured here with Verbena bonariensis, also known as Brazilian Verbena, which is another delightful and prolific self-seeder. 

Celosia spicata

Profuse and pink, I cut these freely for drying and fresh arrangements and they just keep giving. They seed themselves so densely they require thinning in the spring, but 100% worth it!  I like to have them waving among the dahlias. 

Forked Bluecurls (Trichostema dichotomum) 

A native annual, this tiny delicate plant fills in empty spaces in the garden, creating airy green waves with tiny pops of blue. Not a cutting flower, but a pollinator magnet. The plants top out at about 24" so it can serve as a green mulch, albeit a very beautiful one. 

Caryopteris 

Technically, a shrub, this plant does not perennialize in my garden, but it has been popping up in hidden corners in the most delightful and surprising way. I’m not even sure what the original variety I planted was. 

Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) 

A native plant that I added intentionally by sprinkling seeds I collected from a wild plant on the roadside. I love how these white frothy flowers pop up and fill in and around plants where flowers are long gone, especially when it shows up among the peony foliage. However, please do be warned: this plant can be very aggressive. To keep it in bounds, I cut most of the spent flowers BEFORE they have gone to seed to prevent it from seeding too heavily. This plant is not shy and will self-seed excessively, so plant with caution!