Native Plants

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Sunday - June 02, 2013

From: Licking, MO
Region: Midwest
Topic: Planting, Seeds and Seeding, Wildflowers
Title: Wildflowers for September wedding from Licking MO
Answered by: Barbara Medford

QUESTION:

Dear Mr. Smarty Plants, I am getting married this September in Licking Missouri back in the woods on my dads land. I would like to have wildflowers for the bouquets and reception decor. Can I get some advice on which flowers would be the best and how I go about planting(where and when)them? I am interested in white flowers mostly with some pops of soft pinks, blues, and even purples if possible. Any information would be helpful! Thanks!

ANSWER:

We love getting questions about wildflower weddings. What we hate are the answers we have to give. The Mr. Smarty Plants Team is good, but we still have to play by Nature's rules. Wildflowers that would be blooming in September in Missouri would have to have been planted last Fall. Perennial wildflowers blooming in September would have had to be planted two years ago.

Please begin with this previous Mr. Smarty Plants question and follow the links in it, too.

Now, if you have not totally lost patience, please read these three previous answers, which deal with using the surroundings that are already there.

Clearing a space for an outdoor wedding

Backyard wedding

Farm for wedding

Because there is always hope, we are going to go to our Native Plant Database and select wildflowers ("herbs") that bloom in Texas Co., in south central Missouri. and select white, pink, blue and purple for the flowers. We got 617 possibilities for the four colors and growing natively in Missouri. And we didn't even get through the A's!

We have listed the first 4 we found with your requested colors. Now, this is not to say that all these flowers are going to be up and blooming on the site you have chosen, but some should be. Advice:

1. Mow only to make paths and a place for the ceremony.

2. Use NO herbicides for any reason. If something obnoxious is coming up, pull it. Spraying unidentified plants with poison may be killing the loveliest flowers for your ceremony.

3. Ask others in the area if they have fields of wildflowers from which you can pick bouquets. Be advised that wildflowers do not ordinarily make very good cut flowers.

Achillea millefolium (Common yarrow) - white

Agalinis purpurea (Purple false foxglove) - purple

Amsonia ciliata (Fringed bluestar) - blue

Aquilegia canadensis (Eastern red columbine) - pink

Bottom line: Let Nature do its job.