For some of my garden plants I started the seeds indoors in little pots. Watermelon, cucumber, cantaloupe, and beans. For my flowers, well, my neighbor gave me this tiny, sad looking plant and said it was a four o' clock, called so because it opens after the sun goes down, actually closer to seven-ish. It is really called a Mirabilis jalapa or Marvel of Peru. I stuck it in the ground near the wall by my house thinking it would probably die but I wanted to take really good care of it anyway.
She later gave me two really long plants that needed buried about a foot because their stems were weak and she said they were moonflowers which also bloom at night but a little bit later. I wasn't really thinking "flowers" when I was planting this year so I stuck them in the ground right next to the other one and gave them each a stick so they didn't fall over.
About a month later I found a tomato plant growing in my front bed which grew from a seed I threw out after it refused to grow. It was pretty big so I planted in the ground right next to my moonflowers because the back vegetable garden was full.
She later said those moonflowers will get really big so you need to plant them far apart from one another. Well, it was too late. They're all there in a row with a tomato plant at the end. Also I can't seem to find the seeds on the moonflower. If I do, I'll be up for exchanging those too. I guess I should ask the neighbor since she's familiar with them. They have huge white flowers. They aren't weakanymore either, they are almost like little trees with soft bark.
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pic3I guess my point is, some of these flowers start themselves so you just transplant them. That's what she did when they started coming up all over, she gave them to me. That's why I collect the mirabilis seeds too, because they get bushy I want to control where they grow. I might start them in pots in the early spring to give them a head start but I bet when I go out to plant them there will be babies to move around from the seeds I missed.
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