Flowers That Plant Themselves

Volunteer Flowers

Each one derives much of its seasonal color from flower seeds you buy and sow only once -- plants such as poppies, larkspurs, coreopsis, and cosmos. After they finish flowering, their seeds drop to the ground, and then new plants magically appear the following year.

Self-sown seedlings, often called "volunteers," sometimes show up in unexpected places -- gravel paths, cracks between rocks, or right in the middle of a clump of something else. This randomness gives a cottage garden its charm and surprise. And if you don't like where something sprouts, it's okay to yank it up.