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The Perversity of Plants
Sweet peas!! Every year since we moved here in October 2016 I have sown sweet peas in autumn and spring and had good germination then grown them on in decent soil, or compost in pots, and by the end of April or mid May at the latest they go all weak and feeble and hardly flower on short stems tho I grow them in cool spots so they don't get cooked in heatwaves.
I didn't bother this year but what have we got, growing in the gravel path on the dry and sunny till 5pm east side of the house? Sweet peas from bird seed - blue one and white ones with no support so clinging on to each other and flowering madly.
Also flax in the same place and never mind that I've sown some of this every year as a pollinator friendly plant in a dedicated but unimproved bed in the veg plot and had nothing.
Each year I sow assorted forms of colourful achillea because the wild, white form is prolific in our wild "grassed" areas. Does it grow? Course not.
On the other hand, this year I have bumper results from sowing 3 kinds of sunflowers plus assorted kale, bettroot, herbs, tomatoes and chillies.
Anyone else have this sort of puzzling behaviour?
I didn't bother this year but what have we got, growing in the gravel path on the dry and sunny till 5pm east side of the house? Sweet peas from bird seed - blue one and white ones with no support so clinging on to each other and flowering madly.
Also flax in the same place and never mind that I've sown some of this every year as a pollinator friendly plant in a dedicated but unimproved bed in the veg plot and had nothing.
Each year I sow assorted forms of colourful achillea because the wild, white form is prolific in our wild "grassed" areas. Does it grow? Course not.
On the other hand, this year I have bumper results from sowing 3 kinds of sunflowers plus assorted kale, bettroot, herbs, tomatoes and chillies.
Anyone else have this sort of puzzling behaviour?
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Plato
5
Posts
Astrantia is supposed to like dappled shade, but the one that did the best last year was Roma in full sun (12+hrs) incl all through that heatwave.
Not even going to discuss all the places grass pops up except for on the "lawn".
Happens to me all the time.
The seeds I did sow (obviously too early) were a nightmare to keep the light and temperature just right for them - they were overly mollycoddled and didn't really thrive. But it appeared some seeds had escaped in the drop, and lovely healthy tomato plants, the sort I could only have dreamed of a few months prior, were springing up all over the place, in hanging baskets, amongst the hollyhocks, marigolds and other plants. There's a moral here to be had.
Cambridgeshire/Norfolk border.
Luxembourg
I have cyclamen coum, verbena bonariensis, welsh poppies, lobelia, forget me nots, elephant grass etc. etc. growing from seed in slate chipping paths, full sun, and thin gritty soil all over my garden. Unlike seed that I cossett and fuss over.
@Busy-Lizzie you've disturbed the soil which often works with poppies. i've just found an old film canister filled with opium poppy seeds and will scatter them later to see if anything grows.