dee,
Years ago I had a fairly large working cutting garden that my daughters cut and sold from. The primary challenge in a cutting garden was to have as many plants in bloom at one time extended over the entire growing season. Overlapping bloom time was an important consideration as well as a good mix of perennials and annuals which added diversity. The bloom time juggling is not necessarily something that could be determined from a book as there were just too many region factors ie. how early your soil warms, but I do recall depending heavily on Allan Armitage's "Specialty Cut Flowers". To answer your question I believe that allowing for reseeding may be something that you regret in the long run as the real estate in a cutting garden typically is never vacant and allowing reseeding will just diminish by crowding and shading. I am probably not making much sense but to sum up timing is everything in a cutting garden. kt

Hi Katy. Thanks for the reply, and actually, you make perfect sense. I do understand what you are trying to say.

Let me clarify a bit my reasons for encouraging reseeders, not just for you but for others who will hopefully join us on this thread.

First of all, I find it is kind of a back-up to my winter-sowing, an insurance policy, if you will, in case of poor germination. For instance, my chinese asters had terrible germination this year, but I was saved by some nice reseeders in the cutting garden.

Secondly, I often move the returning seedlings to make the areas more orderly. I don't often just leave them where they are, unless they are where I want them anyway, lol.

Since I do actively cut the flowers every season, I usually only leave a small portion standing to reseed. Actually, sometimes what I do is cut and clean everything, and then leave one or two seed-heads laying in the soil on purpose. I did this two years ago with one sunflower head that yielded a whole wonderful crop of sunflowers (over 200!! - plant swap, anyone?) and last year with said asters, thank goodness!

And lastly, I find that the reseeders are often ahead of anything that I started from seed. For instance, some returning annual rudbeckia and sunflower plants are much bigger, and already in glorious bloom, than the plants I started this year. And that helps extend the bloom time, which is a point you brought up.

So I do like to encourage, for now, the reseeders. Which brings me back to my problem of how to go about mulching. I may have to find a compromise. Perhaps wait till a certain time to mulch, and whatever has returned keep, and too bad about whatever may yet be to return. After all, I suppose I don't need to keep every single solitary seedling, lol. Although it goes against my nature NOT to!

Thanks!
:)
Dee

Gee, doesn't anyone here have a cutting garden? If not, you should - so you can help me with mine, lol!

Oh well, I guess I'll just finish up weeding and throw down more mulch for this season. Next year I'll figure out what to do.

Thanks,
:)
Dee

dee,
I have continued to think about your dilemma and all I could come up with at first was to either become extremely knowledgeable about the life cycle/emergence of the weeds you don't want and try using corn gluten, or divide your garden into two area's one for orderly planting rows for easy cutting and rotation, and the other area where you grow one or two of each plant with the intent of reseeding and transplanting into the first area.
When I read your last responses I thought your right not many folks have cutting gardens these days. Which lead me to think that some of the Historic display gardens throughout New England would probably have really good suggestions for you. kt

Don't you find that plants that reseed do so right in the mulch? My mulch, bark mulch or grass clippings, seems to let anything reseed that falls on it, tho it prevents seeds already on the ground from coming thru it, like last year's seeds.

LOL, Ginny, the only thing that reliably reseeds in the mulch are weeds!

Anyway, that's my problem - it's last year's seeds (flower seeds) that I want to return, so I don't want to mulch too heavily or too early.

I've been thinking about this, and I think what I'll do is save some seed heads from each plant I want, place them where I want them for the next year (and hope I don't change my mind, lol) and then when next year comes, I'll know where to look for what. Then I can mulch more heavily in other places and if I smother some returning sprouts, well, so be it. And then in those areas where I deliberately placed the seed heads, I can thin and also plant my winter-sown seedlings.

Thanks, guys!
:)
Dee