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Spring colour
Mary370
Posts: 2,003
Hi, I'm looking for thoughts on what I should be planting from seed, to have colour in the April, May, June garden.
I have no flowers in the garden until mid-June, once the daffodils have flowered. From now, the garden is looking lush, and will do until the first hard frost, but I really want flowers for the beginning of the season.
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Mary,
That time of year you're likely to be looking at bulbs and flowering shrubs/trees, for the majority of seeds it'll probably be too cold in winter for them to germinate.
I'm not sure when you had in mind to be planting seeds? Or if it even specifically has to be seeds? Do you have the ability to germinate and propagate somewhere warm?
I look forward to the puffy pale blue clouds of forget-me-nots in early spring.
Hellebores will flower from Feb - and some of mine are still in flower - but looking rather tatty.
Hepatica
Brunnera Jack frost
Winter heathers will be in bloom from winter until April
Pulmonaria
Aqualegia
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
I don't want to think about it until September
Hi BobFlannigon...........last Winter I winter-sowed in 2/3 litre milk cartons/ 5 litre water bottles with moderate success, as I am trying to grow a fairly large cottage garden on a limited budget. In December I planted lots of seeds: dianthus, lavender (flowering now), curry plant, anchusa, antirrinhum (in garden Flowering now), kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate, hardy geraniums (in garden flowering now), verbena (in garden flowering now), achillea, sanguisorba, unspotted dog, verbascum, primula vialli, rudbeckia, dahlias (in garden flowering now) mallow............those not yet in the ground will be large enough to go into the garden this Autumn, so they will flower next year. The Winters here are mild enough that I leave the dahlias and gladioli die back into the ground and the fuchsia, cannas and geraniums overwinter in their pots outside. I even have a Spider plant (house plant) that is out all year round.
I enjoy the challenge of growing from seed, and get immense pleasure in seeing the many successes, and rethink what I did wrong for my failures.
I even managed to overwinter a few late Summer/Autumn sown plants last winter, but I didn't fully understand the process, and left the lids on the boxes all winter, to my amazement some sweet peas, cornflowers and calendulas survived the process. I'm hoping that as I have lots of cornflowers now, Spring sown, that they will reseed themselves and hopefully flower earlier next year.
The only plants I had zero germination on were Hostas and impatiens. But I will try again, and follow the instructions this time
Last edited: 06 July 2017 11:51:33
Pete8...........thanks, I have grown aquilegia and pulnonaria from seed this year, will be planted in the ground in Autumn, when large enough. Must google the others.
Pete8.......my hellebores are germinating at the moment
You can start now by sowing pansies , cornflowers , primroses , forget me nots , I hope that helps .
Hellbores are lovely.
I've never planted one, but one did appear amongst the gravel next to a bench by the fish pond. That was 10 or more years ago. There's a clump of about 8 now and they seem so happy there I don't have the heart to move them.
They self seed and every plant is a bit different -
Took this pic of one in April
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.