[Suziees]

Hello everyone
I'm new here and new to growing my own plants/flowers.
I would like to ensure that during winter I have some colour in my pots that sit on my patio. However I've no idea what seeds I need. Would like bedding plants not shrubs etc.

Also when do I start and how?

Any advice greatly welcomed  :blink:

[Yorkie]

The winter bedding plants that immediately spring to mind are pansies / violas.

Have a look at the seed catalogues and see whether they are available from seed.

[sarajane]

I'll be sowing wallflowers any day now

[Willow_Warren]

I bought some pansie seeds to try and grow for winter.  I only bought them to make my order over £50 and get free delivery.  I've still got to work out how to grow them from seed though... 

I got plugs last year with did really well, nice to have some winter colour, only just digging them up to replace with geraniums.

I got primrose plugs last year as well, which looks really pretty in early spring - these were something like £3 for 12 from Aldi, loads of colours to choose from.  They had pansies and violas for a similar price loads of colour choice, will be a back up if my seeds don't work for me...

Hannah

[compostqueen]

Pansies grow very easily from seed

I love wallflowers and they too grow readily from seed, plus there's the advantage with seeds that you get to choose your colour scheme

Polyanthus grow easily from seed too and again there is such a lot of choice colour wise.  They attract bees too and look lovely on the window ledge where you can see them up close

[spottymint]

Pansie are easy to grow from seed.

Wallflowers look good too (not on acid soil though  ) Bought lots of nice colour seeds on ebay, (prem seeds ect), then realised they did not like my soil (acid - clubroot)

Never tried polyanthus, but grown primrose & they were pretty easy.

Sweet william would look good in borders & are pretty easy.

The small Cyclamen you see in winter baskets are challanging to grow from seed, so best bought.

[Suziees]

Thank you for the suggestions, you gave me more ideas than I had. All I could think was pansies.

The seed catalogues online don't say winter seeds? Or maybe I'm missing something. Remember I'm new to this 

Suziees

[Yorkie]

They won't necessarily say winter 

[compostqueen]

Universal pansies are ones for overwintering I think.  Mine from last year have all come through unscathed and are looking very bright and breezy and have done for weeks despite all the horrible wet weather. The ones in pots are ok too.

I do grow pansies from seed every year though, usually to suit a colour scheme 

The very hardy ones I've grown are from the Joker and Jolly Joker series

[devonbarmygardener]

I'm sowing primroses, pansies (I've already got some for the summer but I love them so much I'm grwoing some more ) and wallflowers.

Wallflowers give you an amazing scent that makes the winter blues not so bad.