Last year, I planted wildflower seeds in the strips along the sidewalk. Many of those seeds turned out to be annuals, so this year the strips were bare well into March. Thinking I would use inexpensive, colorful annuals to fill in the gaps between the coneflowers and tickseed, I bought a packet of zinnia seeds and sprinkled them liberally across the strips.
With a few weeks, zinnia seedlings appeared, making me quite happy. However, what I thought might be weeds turned out to be R. Hirta black-eyed Susans, once I used an app to identify them. A year ago, I saw only one black-eyed Susan blossom in the strips, so I did not expect an explosion of them one year later. However, by April of this year there were easily 16-18 plants, and they are going gangbusters. In fact, the black-eyed Susans are taking over the strips! The good news is that the zinnias seem to be holding their own. However, next year, I’ll let the Susans and coneflowers take over. Problem solved!
