A Gardener’s Guide to Forget-Me-Nots: Taming Their Wild Heart

It’s really easy to take care of forget-me-nots, but the key to success is understanding exactly what type you’re growing and accepting their lively temperament. These pretty blue flowers are known for two things: their beautiful, sky-blue color and the way they take over the garden with vigor.

They are both good and bad. I’ll show you how to acquire all of their beauty while keeping their wild heart under control in this tutorial. From my years of growing—and controlling—these little garden sprites, you’ll discover how to make them a charming and well-behaved component of your yard.

First, which kind of forget-me-not are you growing? (It Matters!)

We need to clear up the most common area of confusion before we talk about care. There are many plants that go by the label “forget-me-not,” and they all have varied demands, especially when it comes to water. This is the first step to success.

• The Myosotis sylvatica, or Woodland Forget-Me-Not: You can find this one at most garden centers and seed packs. It only lives for two years, which is why it’s called a biennial. In the first year, it forms a modest rosette of fuzzy leaves. In the second year, it blooms into a cloud of blue flowers, makes seeds, and then dies. The “perennial” aspect comes from the new seedlings that grow, not from the original plant coming back.
• The Real Forget-Me-Not (Myosotis scorpioides): This plant is a true perennial, which means it comes back from its roots every year. It’s also called the Water Forget-Me-Not. It loves water and does best in swampy soil, along the side of ponds, or in shaded locations that stay damp all the time. Its leaves are not as fluffy as those of its cousin that grows in the woods.
• The Cynoglossum amabile, or Chinese Forget-Me-Not: The flowers on this plant seem a lot like those on a Myosotis, but they aren’t. It really is an annual, and it grows taller and straighter than the others. It likes full sun and has to be planted from seed every year.

We’ll be talking about the common Woodland Forget-Me-Not (Myosotis sylvatica) for the rest of this tutorial because it’s the one that most gardeners plant. But don’t worry, you can easily change the tips!

Here is a simple comparison to assist you figure out what kind of plant you have:

The Ultimate Guide to Growing and Taking Care of Forget-Me-Nots

Once you know what kind of plant you have, it’s easy to take care of it. If you offer them what they need, they will be happy.

The Best Place: Temperature and Light

Forget-me-nots do best in the cool spring temperatures. They like partial shade, especially from the intense afternoon sun. A place under deciduous trees with high branches or on the east side of a building where they get soft morning sun is ideal. In cooler climates, they can usually handle full sun, but only if the soil stays wet all the time. The plants will fade and go to seed very fast if they get too much hot sun.

What the soil needs

These plants do best in soil that is moist, rich in humus, and drains well. You want to make your space look like the floor of a forest. Adding a lot of compost or leaf mold to your soil before planting is an important way to be more environmentally friendly. It not only gives the soil gentle nutrients, but it also makes the structure of the soil better, which helps it hold moisture and stops root rot.

Needs for Water

The most important thing to remember when caring for forget-me-nots is to keep them moist. The soil should never be too dry or too wet; it should feel like a sponge that has been wrung out. In the spring, when they are growing and blooming, you will need to water them often to keep them from wilting.

Less fertilizer is better.

You may relax here. Forget-me-nots don’t eat a lot. In fact, giving them too much fertilizer, especially varieties that are high in nitrogen, can make them produce a lot of leaves and blossoms, which will take away from their blue flowers. The best thing to do is to use the compost you’ve added to the soil. This not only gives the plants food, but it also helps keep the soil healthy, which is an important part of organic gardening.

The Good and the Bad: How to Deal with Self-Seeding

Now we get to the point. Forget-me-nots spread by dropping thousands of tiny black seeds that will grow into new plants the next year. This can make a beautiful blue river, but it can also be a pain. Management, not getting rid of it, is the key.

• Strategy 1: Deadheading to Take Control You have to deadhead the plants if you want to stop them from spreading a lot. This implies cutting off the flower stalks after the flowers have died but before they have a chance to grow and drop their seeds. This is the best strategy to stop a takeover from happening.
• Strategy 2: Getting thinner for health Thinning is the greatest way to keep self-seeding plants from getting out of hand if you like them. When the new seedlings are a few inches tall, in late spring or early summer, just take them out by hand from places where you don’t want them. They have roots that aren’t very deep, so it’s easy to pull them out. This keeps things from being too crowded, which lets air flow better and lowers the danger of getting sick.

A Gardener’s Secret

The first year my forget-me-nots bloomed, I was so happy that I let all of them go to seed. The next spring, I didn’t just have a patch of forget-me-nots; I had a full-blown invasion. They were growing in every gap in the path and strangling out my beautiful hostas. It took a whole morning of focused trimming to get things back in order. It was a good lesson: a little management can go a long way toward maintaining these lovely people as friends instead of enemies.

Here’s a look at how their lifecycle works and how they relate to other common groundcovers to help you keep them under control.

Aggressiveness in Context

How to Grow Forget-Me-Nots

They know how to spread themselves, but you might want to be more careful about where they grow. This is how you may take charge of the process.

• Collecting Seeds: This is the most usual way for the biennial form. Let the stalks dry out and become brown on the plant once the flowers have died. Put a bag over the stem, cut it, and turn it upside down to let the tiny, shiny black seeds fall out. Put them in a cool, dry area and plant them straight into the garden in late summer so they will blossom next spring.
• Transplanting Seedlings: This is my favorite way to fill in gaps. You can get fresh plants for free by thinning off the seedlings that grow on their own! Use a trowel to carefully lift a group of seedlings with their soil still on them and relocate them to their new location. They won’t even notice the shift if you water them well.
• Division: You can propagate the true perennial Myosotis scorpioides by dividing it. In the spring or fall, just dig up the whole cluster, gently pull the root ball apart into smaller pieces, and replant them.

Common Issues and Bugs

Forget-me-nots don’t need much care and don’t get disturbed by pests very often. But there are two problems that happen a lot that you should be aware of.

• Powdery mildew: When it’s humid, you could see a white, dusty layer on the leaves. This is a fungal condition that happens when air doesn’t move around well. The easiest way to stop this from happening is to thin out your seedlings so that each plant has enough room to breathe. This environmentally friendly method works far better than using chemicals. A spray comprised of one part milk and nine parts water can help with an outbreak if it is very bad.
• Leaves Turning Yellow: When the leaves turn yellow, it’s nearly always a warning that the soil is too dry. Water the plants deeply and thoroughly.

Ideas for design and planting plants together

Forget-me-nots are a great way to make gorgeous, romantic scenes in your garden. They go well with a lot of other plants since they have a nice texture and a cool blue color.

• With spring bulbs, they go well with tulips and daffodils. The forget-me-nots make a lovely blue carpet under the bulbs that works as a living mulch. This helps keep the soil moist and keeps weeds from growing in the early spring. They also do a great job of covering the unsightly, yellowing leaves of the bulbs as they die back.
• In a woodland garden, you can plant them with other plants that appreciate shade, such as hostas, ferns, bleeding hearts (Dicentra spectabilis), and astilbes. The difference in the texture of the leaves is amazing.
• As a Temporary Filler: Use them to fill in spaces in a new permanent border. up the spring, they will put on a beautiful show of color, and you can easily take them out when your other perennials grow and fill up the gap.

Questions that are asked a lot

Do deer stay away from forget-me-nots?

Yes, for the most part. Because their leaves are fuzzy and they are a little poisonous, deer and rabbits don’t like them.

Do they draw in pollinators?

Of course! They are a great source of nectar for bees and other pollinators like hoverflies in the early season.

Is it possible to cultivate forget-me-nots in pots?

Yes, they look great in pots, especially when you put them alongside pansies or little bulbs. Just make sure to pick a big pot and water them well, because containers dry out faster than garden beds.

In conclusion

Enjoy the wild beauty of forget-me-nots. You can work with them instead of against them if you know what they need and how willing they are. With just a little care, you may enjoy their brief blue magic year after year, turning your spring garden into a magical sea of sky-blue.

Sources

1. Lehnbech, C. A. (2012). Two new species of forget-me-nots (Myosotis, Boraginaceae) from New Zealand. PhytoKeys, (17), 51-67. https://phytokeys.pensoft.net/lib/ajax_srv/article_elements_srv.php?action=download_pdf&item_id=1435
2. Lappula myosotis V. Wolf, a medicinal annual/biennial related to forget-me-nots: complete chloroplast genome and phylogeny. (2023). Mitochondrial DNA Part B, 8(1), 51-57. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23802359.2022.2158692
3. Golovinomyces cynoglossi (Erysiphe cynoglossi) causing powdery mildew on Myosotis sylvatica. (2004). Plant Health Progress. https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/PHP-2004-1124-01-HN
4. Vanderplanck, M., Vereecken, N. J., et al. (2017). The importance of pollen chemistry in evolutionary host shifts of bees. Scientific Reports, 7, 43058. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5316986/
5. Effects of bumblebee visits on seed set of woodland and meadow flowers. (1979). Acta Botanica Neerlandica, 28(2), 243-252. https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/169938471/ABN1979028002006.pdf
6. First comprehensive genome analysis of powdery mildew fungi. (2022). Frontiers in Microbiology, 13, 851986. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9218914/
7. Vanderplanck, M., et al. (2017). The importance of pollen chemistry in evolutionary host shifts of bees. Scientific Reports, 7, 43058. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5316986/
8. Shade requirements and tolerance measures of woodland species. (2018). Frontiers in Plant Science, 9, 1272. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6183557/
9. Seed production and dependence upon pollination by bumblebees. (1979). Acta Botanica Neerlandica, 28(2), 243-252. https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/169938471/ABN1979028002006.pdf
10. Myosotis: New species and distribution information. (2012). PhytoKeys, (17), 51-67. https://phytokeys.pensoft.net/lib/ajax_srv/article_elements_srv.php?action=download_pdf&item_id=1435