There is no denying it – autumn is on its way, and my garden is heading towards its floral zenith. Trees, shrubs, perennials and ornamental grasses blend with dahlias, and vast amounts of annuals and biennials. I truly love this time of year, as my garden transforms into one giant abstract tapestry, which provides me with my daily dose of seratonin.
Ornamental grasses – Anemanthele lessoniana and Carex testacea, have been gently self seeding around the garden for years , and have now reached the garden table.
Sitting at the table is my favourite place just to be . I can spend an age, just looking out through the garden, just being happy and peaceful and calm – no matter what is happening in the world. Do you have a favourite place to spend time in your garden ?
September is proving to be another great month for vases full of cut flowers in the kitchen, which started me thinking…
Wouldn’t it be great if I could supplement my income by growing some cut flowers for sale next year ? A plan was formed, my list of possible cut flowers from seed now includes Amaranthus, Foxgloves, ornamental grasses , Verbena, Sunflowers, Bistort, Dahlias and Umbellifers. I am excited already !
In fact I could not contain my excitement , and have started sowing hardy annuals and biennials in the greenhouse.
Biennials
Foxgloves were sown in early August, and germinated within a couple of weeks, they were then pricked out into individual modules. I will need to pot them on into larger containers in about a months time, and they will be overwintered in the greenhouse.
They will continue growing till about mid autumn, by that point they should hopefully have a decent root system, and their basal foliage. Then comes a winter dormant period, and they should start off growing again in early spring, and flower later in 2021.
I will be planting out the biennials in early spring.
I am really enjoying having seeds germinating in the greenhouse. Normally at this time of year it is usually just full of half ripe tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. It feels a really productive place, and I love opening up the greenhouse in the morning to see how everything is doing.
Just in case you are not sure – biennials are plants that complete their life cycle in 2 years – the first year they germinate and make vegetative growth, and the second year they flower, set seed and die.
Hardy annuals
Hardy annual and perennial seeds recently arrived from Chiltern seeds.
I still need to check out what is available from Higgledy and Thomspon and Morgan seeds. There are obviously lots of seed suppliers out there, but I am always really happy with their range, germination and health of the plants , and their flowering capacity.
Up until now, I have only ever sown hardy annuals in early spring. I decided to sown them now ( early September ) as there is sufficient time to enable the seeds to germinate and set out a root system in the next month or two, and then they will go through a winter dormant period. Come spring when temperatures increase they will be off to a faster start (as they will already have their root systems in place) and hopefully I will have a much earlier crop of gorgeous flowers for myself and some for sale.
(I’m still wondering why I have never hardy annuals in late summer before)
Just in case you are not sure – hardy annuals are plants that complete their life cycle in 1 year. Within this time they will germinate, grow, flower and set seed.
They can be sown and grown outside – I don’ t have space in my garden to do this, and to be honest, I quite like watching them grow in the safety of my greenhouse, away from slugs and snails, and visiting blackbirds, who are highly skilled at removing seedlings in their quest for a worm. So this winter as well as overwintering my Dahlias, my greenhouse will hopefully be full of hardy annuals, perennials and biennials.
Here are a few seedlings I found in customers gravel pathways this week – so keep your eyes open in your gardens; they are more than capable of doing all the hard work for you !
Verbena bonariensis propagate very easily in gravel pathways !
Enjoy your early autumnal gardens. I hope you have the opportunity to sow some seeds over the next few weeks, they really will make all the difference to how your garden could look in 2021.
As well as cut flowers, I am aiming to grow some very tall perennials and ornamental grasses next year. Only time and my propagating skills ( and blogging ) will tell…
I hope you have enjoyed this edition. If you have any queries please send me a message.
Sally Wicks 