Growing Garden Wildflowers 

Wildflowers have become very popular with gardeners. But what is meant by the term ‘wildflower’? And why are they so popular?

"Wildflower" is not an exact term. The term means slightly different things to home gardeners, conservationists and in the strict botanical sense.

• In gardening/horticulture ‘wildflower’ means a plant indigenous to the country or region, this could be naturalised or native plants. But naturalised plants should have been introduced in a historic sense and should not include recently introduced species.
• Conservationists are likely to consider only native species as wildflowers.
• The botanical sense would be a flower that grows in the wild, so it was not intentionally seeded or planted.

So, in a home garden, ‘wildflowers’ or ‘wildflowers’ are flowering plants that could be expected to grow wild in the country (in our case New Zealand), whether they are natives or historically introduced. They may grow wild, i.e. have self-seeded, in your garden or they have been selected and planted as seed or seedlings referred to as wildflowers on the label.

The popularity of garden wildflowers is largely attributable to the desire of gardeners to attract beneficial insects such as butterflies and bees to their gardens, to a move towards less formal, gardens, and to a desire for colour and a cottage garden look.

If you want to bring splashes of wildflower colour to your garden and to attract bees and butterflies, Kiwicare Gro-Sure Easy Wildflowers are for you. Each Easy Flowers has its unique combination of flower seeds, plant food and mulch. All seeds selected for New Zealand soil and climate conditions. Flowers include Pheasant’s eye, alyssum, love lies bleeding, amaranthus, calendula, cornflower, chrysanthemum, coreopsis, foxglove, Livingstone daisy, gilia, candytuft, gypsophila, echium, nemophila, nigella, poppy, evening primrose and more. With colours – Rose, blood-red, white, pastels, green, gold, indigo blue, pink, violet, sky blue, yellow, scarlet, light blue and many more.

There are two sizes; the 800 g packs contain flowers of a variety of heights from 10 cm up to 1.2 metres, suitable for flowerbeds and borders. The 300 g packs contain lower growing flowers from 10 cm up to 50 cm, suitable for containers, pots and hanging baskets.

There is also a Gro-Sure Easy Flowers Bright and Pastel Mix.

David Brittain
Kiwicare