Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => General Gardening => Topic started by: GYO Girl on September 16, 2014, 16:03

Title: Which flower seeds will I only have to buy one packet of?
Post by: GYO Girl on September 16, 2014, 16:03: I have never bothered with growing annuals until last year, when I got a free packet of calendula seeds with a magazine. I sowed them, and was amazed to see the amount of seed that was produced after they had finished flowering, which I saved and sowed again this spring. This year I got a fabulous display for free, and even more free seed. Now it looks like that one packet is all I will ever need, I have collected masses more this year!

I'm hooked on collecting my own seed now, and this has got me thinking, are there any other annuals are such prolific self-seeders that I will only ever have to buy one packet?
Title: Re: Which flower seeds will I only have to buy one packet of?
Post by: surbie100 on September 16, 2014, 16:11: Nasturtiums, cornflowers, poached egg plants, poppies, nigella, sweet peas, borage. Sow them once, have them forever! :)
Title: Re: Which flower seeds will I only have to buy one packet of?
Post by: robinahood on September 16, 2014, 16:22: Forget Me Nots and Foxgloves, although I think the latter are biennials. Still lovely!
Title: Re: Which flower seeds will I only have to buy one packet of?
Post by: snowdrops on September 16, 2014, 18:29: Verbena bonariensis, aquilegias.
Title: Re: Which flower seeds will I only have to buy one packet of?
Post by: GYO Girl on September 17, 2014, 07:36: Can't believe I never even realised you could collect sweet pea seeds, they are the one annual I DO grow! ::)
Title: Re: Which flower seeds will I only have to buy one packet of?
Post by: JayG on September 17, 2014, 10:39: How NOT to do it:

Buy a packet of mixed summer annual flower seeds, rake in and water, enjoy the lovely display of flowers, and leave them to do their own thing hoping for a repeat performance the following year. :wub:

Within 3 years the dominant grower/seed producer, which in my case was borage, had completely taken over and swamped all the others, and took another couple of years to get rid of. :ohmy:

Any summer annuals I grow now are sown separately indoors so I know exactly what I'm getting - everything else gets repeatedly hoed off before planting them out, which if nothing else avoids the tricky problem of trying to identify which seedlings are which (or are actually weeds, of course.)
Title: Re: Which flower seeds will I only have to buy one packet of?
Post by: Gardener and Rabbit on September 18, 2014, 21:26: Alyssum & antirrhinum are both easy self seeders.

All I do is pull out any seedlings that are making straggly plants rather than compact plants, to keep a better garden strain.
Title: Re: Which flower seeds will I only have to buy one packet of?
Post by: GYO Girl on September 19, 2014, 14:52: Quote from: JayG on September 17, 2014, 10:39

Any summer annuals I grow now are sown separately indoors so I know exactly what I'm getting - everything else gets repeatedly hoed off before planting them out, which if nothing else avoids the tricky problem of trying to identify which seedlings are which (or are actually weeds, of course.)

Yes, that's how I'm planning to do it - collect the seeds into an envelope and sow into modules - otherwise I won't be able to identify the difference between weed seedlings and annual seedlings (although I can identify a calendula seedling from a 100 paces now!)
Title: Re: Which flower seeds will I only have to buy one packet of?
Post by: pigguns on September 19, 2014, 15:19: :D Hollyhocks! :nowink: Don't really do flowers but I do love them, so showy and so easy. I have a pink/salmon selection :wub: