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Is it too late to plant honesty seeds to flower next year

Bill_and_BenBill_and_Ben Posts: 161
in Plants
I visited a lovely garden at Chenies Manor House in Hertfordshire yesterday. It's well worth a visit. I bought some honesty seeds and wondered if now is too late to sow them for flowering next year?

It says July on some Google results and August is only a month later....
My location: Histon, near Cambridge, UK


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  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    edited August 2020
    They're biennial. So the first year the grow leaves, second year they flower. so no chance of flowers next year, but yes for the following year. 
    Ok to sow them now. 
    Devon.
  • Butterfly66Butterfly66 Posts: 970
    The seeds are just dropping naturally now so probably the ideal time
     If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
    East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
  • Bill_and_BenBill_and_Ben Posts: 161
    Hostafan1
    said:They're biennial. So the first year the grow leaves, second year they flower. so no chance of flowers next year, but yes for the following year. 
    Ok to sow them now. 

    Butterfly66 said:
    The seeds are just dropping naturally now so probably the ideal time
    Good point - will sow some now and see what happens and will also sow some next spring at the recommended time too.

    Thank you both!
    My location: Histon, near Cambridge, UK


  • Bill_and_BenBill_and_Ben Posts: 161
    I sowed these last August but am seeing no seedlings yet. Is this normal? I'm trying to work out whether to sow anything else in this bare patch if they are not going to germinate?

    On a related note, I wish there were a website or app which showed plants/weeds in their tiny stages so I could learn to identify them. I keep growing weeds and don't know they are weeds for quite a long time! When I sow something I'm not familiar with it would be great to know what those seedlings are expected to look like!
    My location: Histon, near Cambridge, UK


  • LG_LG_ Posts: 4,360
    That's something I keep thinking I might do, @Bill_and_Ben - set up a website for exactly that purpose. Maybe I should finally get round to it!
    'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
    - Cicero
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576

    LG_ said:
    That's something I keep thinking I might do, @Bill_and_Ben - set up a website for exactly that purpose. Maybe I should finally get round to it!

    What a good idea! I'm sure people on here would be able to contribute pictures of the seedlings of self-sown plants as well as weeds, if you started a thread for it. I've been pulling out mountains of teeny tiny Linaria purpurea just recently, and I'm sure there'll be more coming up.

    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • didywdidyw Posts: 3,573
    Ooh, yes please @LG_.  I'd love to be able to identify which are my direct sown seedlings and which are weeds before the weeds get too big. 
    Gardening in East Suffolk on dry sandy soil.
  • LG_LG_ Posts: 4,360
    Maybe I'll start a thread, people can add photos and if there are enough and they're useful enough I might build a site. And if I don't, then the thread should be useful anyway.
    'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
    - Cicero
  • Bill_and_BenBill_and_Ben Posts: 161
    LG_ said:
    That's something I keep thinking I might do, @Bill_and_Ben - set up a website for exactly that purpose. Maybe I should finally get round to it!
    I think that would be a marvellous idea! I've been wanting this for 5/6 years ever since I started gardening a lot. I'm okay on chickweed, red oxalis (have way too much of that), dandelion, ground elder and most things I plant as I put labels in next to it. Anything else and I'm hopeless!

    One year I thinned out and planted into rows what I thought were seedlings of a packet I must have planted and the whole lot came up horrible weeds!
    My location: Histon, near Cambridge, UK


  • Bill_and_BenBill_and_Ben Posts: 161
    LG_ said:
    Maybe I'll start a thread, people can add photos and if there are enough and they're useful enough I might build a site. And if I don't, then the thread should be useful anyway.
    Double and triple 'like'!!
    My location: Histon, near Cambridge, UK


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