Let yourself go to seed

Growing plants from scratch offers staggering variety and fantastic value. Here are the highlights from this year’s seed catalogues

Our unexpectedly hot and sunny autumn may still be fresh in the memory, but like many gardeners I’m already looking forward to 2017. There’s plenty to do as we head towards winter, with herbaceous perennials to be cut back, bulbs to be planted, containers to be replanted, and next year’s seeds to be ordered.

Not all gardeners like to grow plants from seed, worrying that seed trays take up too much room and the whole process is altogether too fiddly. But where seeds really come into their own is if you want to try something a bit unusual, and they’re also fantastic value – most packets of seeds cost under £3, and for that you’ll be able to raise dozens of plants.

So, what are the highlights from the new batch of seed catalogues? Suttons (suttons. co.uk) has a charming new perennial salvia, ‘Purple Fairy Tale’ (£2.99), which produces spires of purple blue flowers. Sow the seeds in spring and it will be blooming by the summer. Another perennial that will flower from a first-year sowing is Leucanthemum ‘Crazy Daisy’ (£2.99), whose shaggy white petals, surrounding a golden centre, make it a showstopper. An easy-to-grow hardy annual I’ll be trying is Calendula ‘ Snow Princess’ (£2.99), a marigold with lemony-white flowers. The edible petals will look delightful in salads or on cakes.

From Dobies (dobies.co.uk) there’s a really pretty variety of asarina, the climbing snapdragon, called ‘Joan Lorraine’ (£3.49). This is a half-hardy annual, flowering from summer well into October, with violet- blue, trumpetshaped flowers that hang downwards; Main picture: ‘Strawberry Blonde’. Above left, from top: ‘Crazy Daisy’, ‘Sugar Stars Mixed’ and ‘Queen Red Lime’ ideal for covering a sunny trellis. Foxgloves are increasingly popular and one of the newer varieties is ‘Pam’s Split’ (£2.99), with large, creamy-white flowers with burgundy blotches and up to five flower stems on each plant.

Seed giant Thompson & Morgan (thompson-morgan.co.uk) is making a lot of noise about a new French marigold called ‘Strawberry Blonde’ (£2.99). This half-hardy annual, with flowers in shades of pink and russet, will look stunning in pots. Another great plant for late summer is Phlox ‘Sugar Stars Mixed’ (£2.49); sow in late winter or spring and it will give you starry blueishpurple flowers over a long period.

Dahlias, once dismissed by plant snobs for being too brash, are now the height of fashion, and I suspect zinnias will have a similar renaissance in the coming year. Chiltern Seeds ( chiltern seeds. co. uk) has an extensive range such as bright pink ‘Luminosa’ (£1.99), deep-burgundy ‘Benary’s Giant Wine’ (£ 2.20), chartreuse- green ‘ Envy’ (£1.95), icy-white ‘Polar Bear’ (£1.95), and ‘Queen Red Lime’ (£1.95), which has a maroon centre and petals that fade to an attractive lime green.