Blooming Hollyhock Flower Flower Power by Pippa Greenwood You can grow a huge range of flowers from seed at home. It’s amazingly inexpensive and surprisingly easy too. If you’re after some long-term residents for your flower borders then rather than paying several pounds for each and every plant you buy, why not be a bit more adventurous and grow your own from seed? Just about every perennial flower - that’s those that last for years and don’t have to be replaced on an annual basis - is available to grow from seed, and although you’ll have to wait until the plants have put on plenty of growth before they start to perform, once they have reached flowering size, they’ll just keep on and on performing! There are lots to choose from, including lupins, silene, Echinaceae, geranium, perennial poppies, delphiniums, gaillardia, hollyhocks, rudbeckia and salvia. Pay a visit to your local garden centre or study the pages of some seed catalogues and start plotting and planning what you’d like; you could save yourself a fortune, and all from a packet or two of seed. To get started, all you need are some containers into which you can sow the seed – I like to use half-sized seed trays, RootTrainers or smaller individual cells. You will also need some good quality compost and your chosen seeds. The job will be all the easier and better if you have something to tamp down the compost too, plus labels, a permanent marker, a dibber and some vermiculite (for covering seeds that need some light to germinate well). Compost often has a fair number of lumps in it, so sieving it through a compost sieve (which has much larger holes than a kitchen sieve) will allow you to remove the larger lumps, leaving fine compost perfect for seed sowing. If you sieve it straight into the pots, cells or trays, make sure you collect up any that falls on the surface below. Once the compost is in the tray or pot, firm it down so that there are no large gaps beneath the surface, as you don’t want subsidence later on. Levelling it off will make it easier to ensure the seeds are all sown evenly and at the same depth. You can make your own tamper using a piece of wood with a small block of wood nailed to it to make a ‘handle’. When it comes to sowing the seed, it is worth remembering that it is easier to look after the seedlings later on if the seed has been sown in rows, rather than randomly scattered. Straight rows are easily made using a plastic plant label. Check the seed packets for the precise depths at which the seed needs to be sown as this will differ from variety to variety. If you are sowing seeds in small cells then it is easier to make the holes using a dibber. If you don’t have one, a pencil works perfectly well! RootTrainers are particularly useful for larger seeds such as sunflowers. Sowing the seed thinly along the drills in a seed tray makes life easier later on. Sown too densely, the seedlings that emerge will need more thinning out, and will be more likely to become drawn, leggy and weak, whereas given a bit more space they tend to be a lot sturdier. Once in place, just cover the seed with compost. 48 Log into www.cr5.co.uk your local community website! If you are sowing larger seed into cells, just pop the seeds in to the prepared holes and cover to the required depth. The ideal sowing depth will be stated on the seed packet – it is not too exact a science, but it is best to get it about right! When all the seeds are sown, use a watering can with the rose attached to water the compost thoroughly. If the seed sown was quite small then it is best to water the compost by standing the tray in a shallow tray or bowl of water, and allow the compost to absorb the water from below – this way the seeds are less likely to be displaced. Finally, don’t forget to label your seed trays clearly, ideally with a permanent marker. You may think you’ll remember what is in each tray, but seedlings don’t always resemble the full-grown plants that closely. Many perennials need heat for the seed to germinate reliably. Put the trays, pots or cells into a propagator, standing each on moist capillary matting. Once the seedlings appear, gradually lower the temperature and then prick each one out into its own pot. Allow them to grow on, keeping them fed and watered as necessary. In just a few weeks or months you can have some great plants ready for the garden. Visit Pippa’s website www. pippagreenwood.com to buy UK grown vegetable plants and weekly advice emails from Pippa, or to peruse the really useful selection of Pippa’s favourite gardening items.
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