What to do with wildflowers over the winter

[JamieNotJames]

I planted some wildflower seeds late spring in the borders and they flowered spectacularly in the summer/late summer.

They've all died back now.
What should I do with them now. Should they be cut back or do they need to be left alone?

From a plant identification app (I have no clue) were mainly a mix of sunflowers, poppies, common hostage, fiddleneck, cornflowers, nasturtiums.

Oh which ones did you buy?

Let them all ripen their seeds, then dig over the soil and wait for a new crop to grow from seed. All of those (except for the hostage?!) are annuals, which die down after flowering.

I suspect the sunflowers were in fact corn marigolds, but that’s apps for you

They were just a £10 pack off Amazon.
I was thrilled when they all started flowering as they looked beautiful and were full of bees.

Common hostage 😂 that meant to say common borage

Just leave it till May. Insects use to stems as winter shelter. Birds & animals eat seed.

It looks "messy" but is far more eco friendly.

As above pps have said, all annual seeds so the plants set seed and then die, and you will get new plants next year hopefully, depending on how well the seeds do. I would buy some more seed in the Spring to bulk them up well.

Haha, I was baffled by that - Sunflowers in a wildflower mix??!!

What's common hostage OP? I googled it and got pictures of people taken hostage 😂

Pretty sure fiddlenecks are American so not sure the app is doing you any favours there - also nasturtiums aren't native wildflowers either.

Poppies and Cornflowers are native annuals and like disturbed ground so they might come back if you let them seed and then dig the area over. The nasturtiums will seed like crazy I expect. If it was pot marigolds rather than sunflowers then they seed easily as well.

Lave it all over winter for wildlife and cut back in Feb or cut it back now - it's up to you. It sounds like the mix worked really well though which is great as they often don't.

There were definitely sunflowers, this is a pic of the border when they all started dying away.

All those are self seeding annuals so you can just let them do their own thing.

My borage re-seeds itself really well.

I know it's tempting to "clean up the borders for winter" but it's so much better for all concerned if you just leave it alone. At least until temperatures are warm enough in spring for the bugs to hatch.

Pretty sure fiddlenecks are American so not sure the app is doing you any favours there - also nasturtiums aren't native wildflowers either. They are american, but they're a common component of so-called "wildflower" plantings (along with Cosmos).

Yes, they are sunflowers. And nasturtiums. Neither of which are UK wild flowers. Sunflower stems are good for overwintering insects, seedheads are good for goldfinches.