You might want to cut the echinacea seed heads off and then fall sow the seed so the birds don't eat them. Grape hyacinth makes numerous little bulblets. If you want it everywhere just dig in the soil and they will separate and scatter all through it. I don't know if birds eat bee balm or new england asters. Asters can be divided for new plants.

Hardy annuals that reseed are a good choice for lazy gardeners who want reliable flowers each year. You could add some of them to the area. Seeds usually germinate in fall, winter over as a rosette and then take off early in spring. They will come up every year with no effort. I'm suggesting these because I think what you want is for the area to naturalize. Annual gallardia is a good choice, it blooms from late spring to fall. There are several others.

Daffs (narcissus) and grape hyacinths naturalize readily in suitable conditions so no need to do anything with them. Bee balm spreads well also, in some cases rather aggressively. The aster and the echinacea might be best increased by division. The newer echinacea hybrids will not come true to form and all echinacea species are self-infertile to some degree so you need to plant two distincltly different varieties to reliably generate viable seed.

I have a New England aster that reseeds so prolifically I have to pull out seedlings.

Annuals that reseed readily are:
- larkspur
- Feverfew
- Euphorbia marginata
- Centaurea cyanus
- Forget me not
- Poppy
- Rudbeckia hirta
- Money Plant (Linaria annua)

- Rudbeckia triloba (biennial)
I just shake the seeds over my garden beds as I clean up my garden. :-) My garden never looks the same twice thanks to these annuals.

Prennials that reseed or multiply well are:
- Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm'
- Rose Campion (Lychnis coronaria)
- Sedum ' Autumn Joy'
- Hosta
- Lady's Mantle
- Platycodon (Balloon Flower)
- Coreopsis lancefolia
- Phlox paniculata
- Tiger lily (Lilium lancifolium/Tigrinum splendens)

This post was edited by pitimpinai on Wed, Oct 1, 14 at 16:56

If you have a heavy mulch down, this can inhibit self-seeding, so maybe scrape some away to leave bare earth around the alliums...and the asters are easily reproduced from spring cuttings or division.

I'm leaning towards using the area as a native flower/pollinator garden in the summer and a spring bulb garden in the spring, if that makes sense.

In theory bee balm should be perfect for the area but it doesn't look healthy. Daffs don't seem to spread much in this area. The nodding onion and echinacea seem to be doing best.

Is it too early to divide an aster or echinacea planted last fall? When would I do it? Gardengal48, if I want reseeding what variety would be good to buy to reseed/interbreed with the regular purple echinacea? If it doesn't grow true to form, does the "natural" form still look good? I have purple echinacea I planted last year and a small struggling orange one I purchased late this year.

Rudbeckia goldstrum is a good thought. I tried to plant some before, but they didn't take. I'll have to try that again. One problem I have is that I planted repeating, regular rows of several types of plants, but only a couple of each type of plant "took", so it looks rather messy and irregular.

This post was edited by edlincoln on Wed, Oct 1, 14 at 14:58

Dividing late blooming perennials - the asters and echinacea - is usually recommended for spring. And I've included a link that has an excellent discussion on propagating echinacea. The species forms (like Echinacea purpurea) would likely make the best seed source as the modern hybrids - those with the bright, flashy colors, like red, yellow and orange - are often sterile. And you can choose any of the popular varieties of purple cone flowers to mix and match. Or you can try some E. paradoxa and develop your own hybrids.

Here is a link that might be useful: all about echinaceas - scroll down to propagation