[earthing83]

Hello everyone,

I am growing annual flowers for the first time this year;

Cosmos,
Larkspur,
Poppies,
Sunflowers,
Silver bedding plant,
Marigolds,
Nastursiums

I have very limited space indoors and only a small plastic greenhouse. As I am starting a lot of veg off indoors I have no space left for flower seedlings! Most of the packs say to sow indoors but I wondered if anyone sows any of these in situ? I think I will do so for sunflowers, can anyone advice on the others?

[Hobnails]

Hi,
I have the same problem of lack of growing space and for annual flowers I get round this by planting them in pot and seed trays ina  sheltered but sunny spot where I have laid a bed of sand that I can fix the pots and trays and then lay sheets of glass over them until they germinate.
I prefer to set out plants into borders rather than sowing directly into the ground to get the best out of the seed packet ( my wife is a 'scatter sower' and  I reckon if we applied her practise to vegetable growing we would quadruple the annual seed bill.
That said, you can broadcast seeds directly, it's what happens in nature after all, but you'd best wait until the last frost  for your area has passed.

Good Luck!

[tosca100]

Have done in the past but the weather this year is making things so difficult.

[JayG]

I always grow a bed of summer annuals and never start them in pots. Have tried all on your list except "Silver bedding plant" with great success (sometimes too much; don't broadcast Cosmos unless you want a forest taking up the whole bed!)

I don't sow until the end of May or even the beginning of June and always get a good display from early August until the first frosts.

[tam]

Poppies I scatter every autumn and they scatter themselves too - grow like weeds! Everything else I grow in pots/trays first or they'd get accidentally weeded out. If you've got a patch just to sow those on then that's probably not so much an issue.

[JayG]

A good idea to grow each summer annual in its own marked out area.

I used to buy a cheap packet of mixed summer annuals and scatter them all over the bed; after a few years everything was randomly self-seeding all over the place with Echiums dominating so decided I had to be a bit more organised.

Made some nicely shaped areas within the summer annual border using plastic lawn edging sunk into the soil, the idea being to grow my choice of annuals inside the lawn edging, hoeing off everything that popped its head up outside...........

Decided to sow only Clarkia that year, had a bit of a problem when I realised that I didn't know what Clarkia seedlings actually looked like which could have made weeding out the self-sets a bit tricky! Got away with it fortunately!

Starting to get the whole thing a bit more under control now!!   

[compostqueen]

Calendula, sunflower, escholzia, nasturtium, Nigella, marigolds  will all come good from a direct sowing providing it's not cold and wet. 

Silver leaf is cineraria and I'd rather grow that from seed and then plant out as you don't want that all over the place, it's more of an edging or dot plant 

[earthing83]

some great advice thanks all. I think I will start the recomended under cover in trays and then wait for warmer weather to have a go at broadcast sowing the rest. As long as I get some colour then I'll be happy! It's just the waiting part that I find difficult! I can't stop rummaging through my seed box to see what I can sow now!

[granjan]

I sow a lot more annual directly since I've had my allotment as I've turned my vegetable plot at home into a potager.   It worked really well as I sowed vegetables like beetroot, lettuce etc at the same time.

Also, as I have clumps of daffodils in my main annual bed, I decided to sow cosmos where the bulbs are as I cut them down.   This was very successful as it meant I didn't accidentally catch any bulbs with the trowel which can happen when you plant plants.   

[rhythmvick]

I sowed some nasturtium and night flowering phlox outside a couple of weeks ago and there's been no sign yet but the weather has been soooo rubbish 

The nicotiana affinis that has been inside on the windowsill and was started off in a freezer bag is doing well. I'll keep it inside with me for a couple of weeks until it's well established and then take it outside. Same with the sweetpeas that are in the modules on the windowsill. Am going with marigold plants instead of seeds so they'll go out when the weather feels pretty good.

I'm not a flowery girl (although I won a cheffing competition with a venison and flowers dish, I kid you not!) but if it smells good and is white then I want it outside the kitchen window!! 

[tallulah]

Having had terrible failures with direct sowing of annual seeds in the past.  This year, I'm going to direct sow into pots/pails/tubs with some protection, and then sow some seeds in seed trays in the greenhouse.  I'm going for larkspur, cleome, nasturtium, love-in-the-mist and gypsophyla.  I've given up trying to grow delphiniums and sea holly from seed - I'm going to buy them ready for planting from a garden centre.  I've had too many failures to waste my time this year!

[mumofstig]

I grew 10 delphiniums from seed last year and some were really pretty colours I even labled them so I could move the colours where I wanted them in the border.

Sadly most of them died during the horrid winter, along with my apricot foxgloves. The bog standard self seeded foxgloves came through unharmed.

Poppies, aquilegia, feverfew, alchemilla, honesty, verbena and forget-me-nots all self seed under the cherry tree