Hello, everyone.

I want to give my father some wildflower seeds for Christmas. He would not be starting a long-term prairie or meadow. He'd just want a patch of mostly annual or fast blooming perennial wildflowers for a temporary splash of color.

He lives in South Georgia, zone 8a. My own results with wildflower planting down here in Florida have been mixed. My blanketflower bloomed and went to seed before the blackeyed susans even got started, for example. Instead of having lots of color, I wound up with lots of seedheads, with bits of color here and there. My "meadow" wasn't like the pictures in the seed catalogs, just as people warned me it wouldn't be.

I want some very easy, low maintenance wildflowers for my Dad. He'll be planting probably 1/4 acre on his farm. Ideally he'd like to just burn off a fallow area of mostly native grasses and weeds and scatter the seed there, so that the flowers would come up with the grass in spring. He could also lightly cutivate an area if necessary, but I don't think he wants to go through the trouble of a series of herbicide applications. He would need to plant in winter/early spring. The soil is mostly sandy, but with with some red clay running through it. It's pretty well drained. The area would not be irrigated. He would not deadhead, but he could be persuaded to mow if it would prolong blooming.

I was considering Cosmos because the catalog says they're easy, and because they would give him a solid blanket of colors at once rather than different bloom times. I was also considering easier wildflowers, like the blanket flower, blackeyed susans, tropical sage, maybe with with some tropical milkweed mixed in for the butterflies.

I think that he would like best the bright field of color, even if it doesn't last long, rather than a more natural look of a few wildflowers mixed with the grass. But if he has a better chance of success with the natural look, I'd go with that.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.