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Growing From Seed

MrsFoxgloveMrsFoxglove Posts: 180
in The potting shed
Morning everyone, 
You were all so brilliant at advising me with my first attempt at layering spring bulbs which nearly all turned out great save for a few pots which I must've over filled   :s so now i'm calling on you again for tips on growing from seed.

I have finally faced up to the fact that every year I spend an unseemly amount on plants from all the lovely garden centres near me (Wisley is only down the road and is breaking my bank  :o) and this year i've really tried to curb it but have still gone a bit crazy so now i'm on a mission to grow my own for next summer. 

I love hollyhocks, foxgloves, astrantia, delphiniums & nemesia to name a few so would love any tips to help me get a garden full of these next year for the price of a packet of seeds. 

A few bits that may help you guide me better... 

I do all my gardening in containers as it's pretty small and I don't have space for borders so they'll be in pots

I don't have a greenhouse or coldframe but do have one of thise little zip up jobbys- a mini greenhouse type thing i suppose

I do have a perpetrator 

I do love a challenge  :D

Any tips would be much appreciated, I believe now is the time for me to get sowing so am keen to get started

X 

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Posts

  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    A perpetrator sounds great :):) I am sure you mean propagator.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • MrsFoxgloveMrsFoxglove Posts: 180
    That's exactly what I meant but my phones predictive text obviously didn't agree ha ha 
  • paul_in_surreypaul_in_surrey Posts: 239
    edited June 2018
    I sowed next year's foxgloves yesterday (Wilko 75p). Seeds are like dust so I just sprinkle on a tray of damp mpc, cover lightly and put in a clear plastic magazine cover (re-used). Once they germinate I'll pot on and do so a few times until I can leave them over winter. Last year loads germinated and I had enough to be able to choose the strongest looking at each potting on stage.

    I see them growing naturally in our local forestry commission site in shady clearings, so I don't think you need to worry about having them in a propagator or even in sunlight all the time. I promise you if I can do it then so can you.

    They aren't massively happy in the pots I have once they start reaching for the skies, so I would go for the largest pots you have, but with a bit of staking and tieing in they're fine and the bees are happy. Bizarrely, all the ones I have in pots this year are white, while all bar one of those I have in the ground at the allotment are purple, but I guess that's the pot luck with a cheapo mixed seed. I love them all though.

    Good luck.
    “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
  • MrsFoxgloveMrsFoxglove Posts: 180
    edited June 2018
    Thanks kindly Paul, I popped to the garden centre for seeds and supplies and came away with seeds, supplies AND 3 plants so that was a disaster  :D I must try harder! 

    What do you do in the way of watering, do you just mist them every day? 
  • Blue OnionBlue Onion Posts: 2,995
    Hollyhocks are super easy.  They do dwarf varieties, that would probably be more suitable for pots.  I would just direct sow them in your desired pot now, and thin out as they grow.  They self sow every where in my garden, even through my grass, they are super easy.  

    If you don't have room for a boarder, consider planting in large plastic storage bins with holes drilled in the side about an inch from the bottom, placed along the back with the front covered by your nicer pots.  A container boarder.  They are easier to water, and deep enough for many types of perennials.  Get a soaker hose and run it along the backs of them side by side.  Space for more flowers.  
    Utah, USA.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    It could really do with a perpetuator, if anyone has one going.
  • MrsFoxgloveMrsFoxglove Posts: 180
    Thanks for the hollyhocks tip Blue Onion, glad they're easy going to grow  :)
    The bin idea is a no no for me though, couldn't think of anything worse in my garden  :D I normally have all my pretty little pots here under ny window so a plastic bin wouldn't cut the mustard but i do like the idea for perhaps growing bits out the back and then potting them on again 

    X 
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    Or a perpetrator, who perpetuates.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited June 2018
    Let me not to the gardening of true plants
    Admit impediments. Care is not care
    Which alters when it alteration finds,
    Or bends with the remover to remove.
    O no! We are the ever-fixed mark
    who look on tempests and are never shaken;
    We are the guard to strange and peeling bark,
    Whose worth's unknown, although the height be taken.
    We're not Time's fool, though roses, pips and leeks
    Within his bending sickle's compass come;
    Care alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
    But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
    If this be error and upon me prov'd,
    I never writ, nor no girl ever lov'd.
  • MrsFoxgloveMrsFoxglove Posts: 180
     :D:D  
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