My Flower Gardens - Volunteer Petunias and Volunteer Squash/Gourd
I have always bought petunia plants from local greenhouses and garden centers and grown them in hanging baskets. I have never had them come back or seed themselves. I told myself it was our climate and that it was just impossible and went on my way. This spring however, some fuzzy plants with familiar leaves began to pop up in my garden around where the hanging baskets are. Once their buds appeared I knew what I had. Volunteer petunias!!! I'm just going to let them grow and see if they will reseed again. They're in a perfect spot, in a garden next to our porch. Here are some of the different ones that have bloomed:
Another surprise came in my rock garden! Somehow there are two vegetable plants growing. The way they look, I am certain they are some kind of squash or gourd. Maybe pumpkin. Maybe even cucumber. I'm going to try to keep them alive in the arid, rocky place they have chosen just so I can see what they turn out to be!
May 16
June 5
Also June 5
There is also a huge mullein growing in my one of my flower gardens. I'm leaving it alone and letting it do its thing. I think they are pretty, the pollinators love them, and they have many medicinal uses. More on that in a Native Ozark Wildflower post. ;)
Thanks for stopping by! Have you had anything surprising voluntarily grow in your gardens this year? Something you weren't expecting? Tell me all about it in the comments! I love comments!!!
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I had a volunteer mullein in the New Herb garden. It is gynormous!
I just posted a Walk With Me where I visit a couple of mullein that randomly sprouted up! They get huuuuge! and the finches love them when they go to seed.
Your squash/pumpkin volunteer reminds me of spitting watermelon seeds at the edge of the beach as a kid, and watching them all come up a week later. Of course, they never made it to maturity, but I think I was even an avid gardener back then!
Watermelon!!! That's what this could be! It's starting to vine so I know it isn't any of the varieties of zucchini or yellow squash I grew in previous years. I'm kind of excited to see what it grows up to be. Haha!
We used to spit our seeds under Grandpa's picnic table...and then he would have to deal with what came up! He was super old when I was very young so it was probably a pain to him to have to pull them up from under there now that I think of it.
Ha! Yes watermelon....comes up wherever you spit the seeds, but I've been trying for days to get in started in my garden....maybe today?!
I have carrots and parsnips that came up from seeds from plants that went to seed last year. I also have several potato plants that came up from small potatoes that were left in the garden when we dug them last fall. Also, the birds scatter the sunflower seeds all over the garden so we have them all over the garden. And then there's the borage...we grew it because the bees like the flowers. That stuff reseeds its self everywhere...
I pull most of the borage out because it gets big if I don't and would take over the garden. I let some of it grow every year to attract the bees to the garden.
Sounds like you almost didn't even need to plant half your garden! Haha! It was done for you! I have left a few wildflowers in my garden as well hoping they will attract more pollinators.
I've never heard of petunias reseeding themselves. How fun! I found some volunteer lettuce and radishes in the garden this spring.
I wonder if that means that we could technically sow seeds for lettuce and radishes in the late fall and they would come up whenever the weather is right in spring. It's an idea anyway.
These petunias really surprised me! I always figured they were so manipulated by genetic modification at this point that they couldn't produce viable seeds. Looks like I was wrong!
In our garden this year, we had some volunteer asparagus, some chocolate mint that migrated out of the raised bed we had them in last year, and some tomato plants trying to mix in with our turnips, spinach, and radishes... silly maters... beautiful flowers @hethur240!
Free plants are free plants! Sounds great to me! We had a grove of tomato plants in our compost pile year before last. It was crazy! Thanks so much, @sallyswitchblade. Much love.
We have been pulling the extra tomatoes around the turnips and radishes. Some of the turnips are not coming in very well.
It may have already gotten too hot for them. Radishes definitely don't like hot weather, I don't know about turnips. I've never even eaten a turnip! Haha!