Add a splash of colour with hardy favourites
F T
OR flowers without fuss, forget about conventional bedding plants and go for old-fashioned hardy annuals instead.
They include traditional favourites such as calendula marigolds, love-in-a-mist and of course sunflowers, the stars of generations of cottage gardens which are enjoying a significant comeback.
These might lack some of the glamour of their sophisticated cousins but they are cheery, foolproof and green, brilliant for natural-style gardens and great for attracting butterflies, bees and hordes of beneficial insects.
Sweet peas, among the most popular hardy annuals ever, are superb grown up a trellis for scent and cutting. The dwarf varieties make excellent fragrant hanging-basket plants.
Unlike their fancier cousins, the seeds of hardy annuals are cheap and don’t need any heat to germinate. You can sow them in a cold greenhouse, in a conservatory or even under a carport with a clear plastic roof, as long as it lets in enough light.
Slightly overfill a container with multi-purpose compost then use a short piece of timber to strike off the surplus level. Use the base of another similar-sized seed tray to firm down the compost gently before sprinkling your seeds thinly over the surface.
Sieve a little compost over the top so the seeds are just about covered and water them in with a fine rose on your watering can.
When the seedlings come up you can leave them in their original seed trays as long as they are not overcrowded and plant them outside some time in April once the weather turns reasonably mild and spring-like.
You don’t have to wait until all of the cold weather is over as you would with frost-tender bedding plants.
But there is an even easier way to raise hardy annuals: sow them in a little nursery bed in the garden. Choose a convenient, sunny but sheltered spot, three-square feet is ample.
Take out any weeds and work in a little well-rotted garden compost or old potting compost then rake very thoroughly to remove all the stones and any bits of root.
Now use a garden cane or a pointed stick to scratch several “drills” – shallow grooves about six inches apart – in the freshly raked soil.
Sprinkle your seeds thinly along the drills, rake back the earth and water them in gently with a fine rose fitted to your watering can.
When the seedlings come through it’s easy to tell weeds from flower seedlings: your flowers grow in straight lines while everything else will be weeds. HAT makes it very quick and easy to run a hoe between rows to keep “the right sort of seedlings” while eliminating competition.
When your young plants are an inch high, thin them out, leaving the strongest ones spaced an inch or two apart.
After a few weeks, any that show signs of growing tall and lanky can be made to grow bushier by nipping out the very tip of the plant with your fingertips.
By the time they have grown into bonny young plants they can be dug up and replanted wherever you need them around the garden or in containers.
And if you want life to be even easier, simply sow them in this way wherever you want them to grow.
Flower growing does not come any cheaper and easier – or more foolproof.