Plant seeds and bulbs now for blooms come spring.
Proper flower bed preparation helps ensure that seeds and bulbs deliver a stunning display of color
Nothing tops a table better than a vase filled with fresh flowers. Plant seeds and bulbs in your cutting garden now, and you’ll be rewarded with blooms you can bring indoors come springtime.
A sunny spot with fertile, welldraining soil will bring a greater crop of flowers. Fill your cutting garden with old-fashioned favorites.
I turn a patch of my vegetable garden into a flower bed and plant ranunculus and anemone tubers, along with larkspur seed; those flowers remind me of my mother’s garden. Poppies, sweet peas and wildflowers are other favorites you could sow this fall for a spring bouquet.
Anemones
The saucer-shaped, 2- to 3-inch flowers have silky red, violet, lavender or white petals encircling their dramatic black stamens. There are single and double varieties. The plants grow to 12 to 14 inches in height. Although they are annuals, anemones are among the most rewarding spring bloomers.
Anemone de Caen and Anemone St. Brigid are good varieties for
Houston’s Zone 9.
Planting tips: Soak the tubers for two hours in warm water with a little root stimulator. The Garden Club of Houston recommends soaking tubers at least two hours in warm water with 1 ounce fish emulsion and 1 ounce molasses for sweet results.
Plant them tuber side up (or on the side if you can’t tell which end is up). Plant in November, 1 to 2 inches deep in a sunny, well-draining bed. Look for the pretty parsley-like foliage to emerge in late fall; flowers blossom in late February or March.
Ranunculus
These stunning single or double blooms look like tissue flowers in yellow, gold, orange, pink, red or white. The 3- to 5-inch blooms and delicate leaves grow on wiry stems about 18 inches tall.
Ranunculus, which are annuals in Houston, produce prolific blooms in late February or March. Cut and bring indoors for beautiful bouquets. Cutting will encourage more blooms.
Planting tips: Soak the clawlike tubers for up to two hours in tepid water and root stimulator. Plant in November, 1 to 2 inches deep and 3 to 5 inches apart in a sunny, well-draining
bed. Water well, and keep moist for two weeks.
If you wish to try replanting them in the garden, allow the foliage to mature, brown and wither. This helps replenish the bulb. Then store the potted bulbs until fall and plant them in the garden.
Cool weather color
Lots of cool-weather flowers are relatively easy to grow from seed. Larkspur are tall plants with feathery foliage and flower spikes of purple, pink and white. Sweet alyssum are lowgrowing plants with tiny white, pink and purple flowers that, when planted en masse, give off a heavenly fragrance. If you
have a trellis in your garden, try sweet peas. They add a delicate filler to a spring arrangement.
Planting tips: Prepare a bed of loose, rich soil with a high content of organic matter and good drainage. Water thoroughly, and sprinkle the seeds on top of the dirt. Water again with a gentle spray. Keep the bed free of weeds, so the little seedlings can get established.
Wildflowers
It’s Texas tradition to celebrate spring with a wildflower road trip, but you can turn your backyard into a wildflower patch, too.
Look for a Texas seed mix or try bluebonnets, coreopsis, cornflower, Drummond phlox, gayfeather, Missouri primrose, gaillardia, Mexican hat, Indian paintbrush, purple coneflower, scarlet flax, toadflax, winecup and yarrow.
Planting tips: Sow wildflower seed from September to December in well-draining soil. A raised bed is ideal, or you can sow in a large container.
Good seed-to-soil contact is important for better germination. Remove all weeds. Rake the soil only an inch down. You don’t want to bring any dormant weed seed to light.
Combine the seed with sand in a ratio of 4 parts sand to 1 part seed. The sand serves as a carrier for the small seed and helps evenly distribute them over the planting area.
Broadcast the sand/seed mixture as uniformly as possible. Repeat in a perpendicular direction. Press the seed into the soil with a roller or walk across the area. You will still be able to see some of the seeds. Many wildflower types are pressed into the soil only 1⁄ to 1⁄ inch deep.
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Don’t sow too deeply or the seeds will use up all their energy trying to reach the surface.
Proper soil temperatures trigger germination. Bluebonnets, for example, germinate when the soil temperature is 55-70 degrees.
Keep the soil moist, but not too wet, while the seedlings establish.
Fertilizing is not necessary unless your soil lacks nutrients; if so, a half-strength application of a low-nitrogen formula (1-3-2) at planting time would be beneficial.
For blooms in years to come, allow wildflowers to set seed. For the first year or two, you may want to sow more to ensure a good show.