Ask Mr. Smarty Plants

That is a grand idea, and not the first time we have been asked for help in such a project. Just to give you some background on what is involved (and also save ourselves some typing) we are going to link you to several previous answers in various parts of the country. Then, we will come back and see what you might need for your particular location. Each of our links has more links, and if we send you to the same link twice, please forgive us.

Tallahassee FL

September wedding in Pennsylvania

October wedding in Rockport TX.

Those are just a sampling, but we hope you got the drift that if the wedding is this year, June 2013, you are probably already about a year late in planning. If you were planning to spread seeds, they usually are planted in the fall or in early spring before and after the ground has frozen, which we suppose it does in northeastern Ohio, Cuyahoga County, USDA Hardiness Zone 5b. If you were planning to put in perennials, again, it's too late. Perennials usually don't begin to bloom until the second year after planting.

We would suggest that you take advantage of the natural beauty of the area, and enhance it with pots of brightly blooming flowers perhaps purchased from a nursery with a greenhouse. You could always buy them in bloom and then transplant them, but transplanted plants often droop for a while until they recover from the shock. Just so you will know we really do care about the wedding, we are going to give you a list of wildflowers native to Ohio with blooming times at about the time you are specifying. You can follow each link to our webpage on the plant to learn about its propagation, color and bloom time.

We went to our Native Plant Database and, using the Combination Search, selected on Ohio, "herbs" (herbaceous blooming plant) under Habit, "annual" under Duration, and June under Bloom Time. This gave us 95 choices, from which we have selected these as the most attractive and suitable. 

Campanulastrum americanum (American bellflower)

Chamaecrista fasciculata var. fasciculata (Partridge pea)

Coreopsis tinctoria (Plains coreopsis)

Euphorbia cyathophora (Wild poinsettia)

Geranium carolinianum (Carolina geranium)

Gentianopsis virgata (Lesser fringed gentian)

Helianthus petiolaris (Prairie sunflower)

Monarda punctata (Spotted beebalm)

Salvia coccinea (Scarlet sage)