Get happy surprises from impulse buys
It’s OK to get carried away when shopping for flower seeds
Not to put a damper on your seed-catalog bingeing — it marks the ritual start to every new garden season, after all — but Andrew Schuyler has a question: Is there a plan attached to your impulsive behavior?
Go ahead and let the catalogs’ vivid descriptions and photographs seduce you into trying something unfamiliar. Schuyler (who goes by Drew) always does.
Some of his impulse purchases of annual flowers in recent Januarys have resonated with visitors at Untermyer Gardens Conservancy, the 43-acre public landscape in Yonkers, New York, where he is assistant head gardener.
They include the orange-red tassel flowers (Emilia coccinea) that call in autumn’s migrating monarch butterflies. And the 4-inch-wide, deep orange zinnias (Zinnia elegans Inca) that called out to an R&B artist who was filming a music video at the garden and snagged one as an impromptu prop.
“One or two really great plants show up every year that are only in the garden because we grew them from seed,” Schuyler said. “They were not part of the plan — just something extra we tried.”
The master plan for Untermyer’s extensive display beds, borders and containers had been designed well in advance, with more than 8,000 young plants, or plugs, ordered to match. Then some irresistible oddballs ended up in a shopping cart on a winter whim.
But for each happy afterthought, Schuyler promptly took the next step: He married every impulse with an equal measure of discipline, studying up on exactly how — and when — to sow those seeds.
“I approach it the way I approach cooking,” he said, “which is to look at a ton of recipes and then find some middle ground to guide me.”
When he saw a catalog photo of purple bell vine (Rhodochiton atrosanguineum), he imagined how it would look cascading out of hanging baskets rather than climbing.
Its flowers are extravagant, with an extra-long, maroon-purple clanger dangling from each fuchsia bell; its distinctive leaves are heart shaped, with toothed edges.
But the plant was unfamiliar and proved to have particular needs: Both light and warmth are required for germination, and it can sometimes take more than a month for seedlings to emerge.
Good to know, or he might have given up on it too soon.
Make a calendar and organize your packets
A favorite resource for this homework assignment is Schuyler’s tattered copy of the industry classic “Ball Culture Guide: The Encyclopedia of Seed Germination,” by Jim Nau, formerly of the Ball Seed company. Seed catalogs are another important information resource, notably Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Select Seeds. Both offer solid, detailed growing information.
Each acquisition and any secrets revealed — ideal sowing depth and temperature requirements, for instance — make their way onto Schuyler’s spreadsheet, arranged in order of when the seeds will be sown.
Here’s how to calculate that: Subtract the number of weeks each variety requires indoors from when you plan to transplant it into the garden.
The earliest possible set-out date is based on how long before or after the final frost a variety can be safely set outside, according to your research.
Open the cheese drawer of the Untermyer staff refrigerator, and you’ll see corresponding evidence of such planning among the packets in cold storage. Multiples are joined by rubber bands, a Post-it note affixed to each little bundle to indicate the intended start date. Cosmos, zinnias, marigolds and Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia rotundifolia), for instance, are marked to get going together on April 1.
More choices: Seasonstretching calendula and an African milkweed
For professional and home gardeners, starting from seed has many advantages — not the least of
which is a far more extensive range of possibilities than garden centers stock as transplants in the spring.
Those who want color weeks before most popular annuals bloom don’t have to settle for any old basic solid yellow or orange calendula (Calendula officinalis) — if the local nursery even sells calendula seedlings. A seed order can deliver sophisticated peach-colored flowers such as Sunset
Buff, Triangle Flashback or Orange Flash, with dark centers and bicolor petals, their undersides revealing contrasting reddish or bronze tones.
Something else you won’t find at the garden center is an African milkweed that puts on a big late-season show, with masses of 3-inch papery green pods covered in spiky hairs adorning
stems that grow to 4 feet or taller. Asclepias physocarpa (or Gomphocarpus physocarpus) is a plant of many names, including Oscar milkweed, hairy balls and balloon plant, and makes for high drama in the ground or in a vase — including when it’s dried.
The Untermyer “last-minute surprises” list recently included Zinderella Peach, a zinnia whose blooms look more like a scabiosa’s. Capsicum annuum Black Pearl, a pepper that doesn’t look like a pepper, also made its way into the garden, likewise started from seed.
“‘What is this black cherry?’ ” Schuyler recalls visitors asking of the purple-black fruits on bushy plants with matching foliage. “Nobody knew it was a pepper until they started to turn red in September.”
It’s a purchase that he highly recommends.
Successions: Plan now to fill holes later
Growing flowers from seed also empowers the gardener to produce backup seedlings to swap in later, as early plantings tire — a moment when nurseries are no longer stocking transplants.
Don’t expect a flowering annual to carry on from spring through fall any more than you would expect a row of lettuce to, Schuyler advised. Even the longest bloomers have their limits.
“We think of something like Cosmos as all-summer blooms, but even Cosmos peters out,” he said. “Ones you sow in April are going to be done by August; ones you sow in July will take you to November. This isn’t a one-and-done situation.”