Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => General Gardening => Topic started by: rowlandwells on February 17, 2018, 19:25

Title: seeds or plugs
Post by: rowlandwells on February 17, 2018, 19:25
as we come nearer to spring for those who have a greenhouse or poly tunnel do you grow your summer flowers from seed or buy plug plant or all  your plants from the garden centres

 we grow seed that are petty easy to raze in the greenhouse but seed that is a bit more intensive we buy in as plugs or cutting razed we found buying like that eliminates all the hassle waste and heating bill

the things we buy from razed cutting or plugs are fuchsia calibrachoa petunia begonia and impatiens its nice to raze seed to flowering but its just to expensive to heat our greenhouse and the supplementary lighting required these days

when i see people comming out of the garden centres with trollies full of bedding i think what that's cost i know its an instant garden of colour and may be those havent got a greenhouse or poly tunnel so i supose we should think ourselves lucky we can grow our own  :)
Title: Re: seeds or plugs
Post by: AlaninCarlisle on February 17, 2018, 19:51
I buy plugs for all summer bedding plants and grow them on in the polytunnel. There are some incredible bargains on line for petunias, geraniums and begonias etc. From memory, last year I was paying not much more than a tenner for 170 plants of each type.
Title: Re: seeds or plugs
Post by: sunshineband on February 18, 2018, 10:16
We choose plants that can be grown from seed where possible, although sometimes give in the buying some of those very small plug plants, which as Alan said, are fairly economical to buy.

Over wintered cuttings also save a fair bit of money.  I have a well insulated frost free greenhouse with no extra lighting, and it does the job a treat: the polytunnel on the plot means I can harden them off easily too


Title: Re: seeds or plugs
Post by: lettice on February 18, 2018, 11:09
I buy plugs for all summer bedding plants and grow them on in the polytunnel. There are some incredible bargains on line for petunias, geraniums and begonias etc. From memory, last year I was paying not much more than a tenner for 170 plants of each type.

170 plug plants for a tenner, wow that sounds a real bargain.
Any links or recommendations?
Title: Re: seeds or plugs
Post by: rowlandwells on February 18, 2018, 14:51
what sort of plants do you overwinter S/B and I assume you have insulated your greenhouse to keep it frost free something we need to consider doing this year if we only insulate half of the greenhouse

and yes there are some bargans to be had from some outlets keeping an eye out on the pc  because we order our plants the previouse to basiclly make sure we get the varieties for the following year we do i admit pay a little extra

but as you say  there are some real bargans to be had especially mail order that we tend to also buy