Higgledy Garden
  • About Higgledy Garden
  • The Higgledy Garden Shop
  • Ben’s Blog
  • Growing Guides
  • Seed Sowing Guide
  •  
0
Your cart is empty. Go to Shop.

Biennial Flowers.

hesperis-flower-biennial

Higgledy Flower School 2016. #6. Biennial Flowers.

Many Biennials are flowers that our Grandparents would have known well…but that lost favour over the last couple of decades, victims of an ever increasing clamour for instant gratification. Foxgloves, Sweet Williams and Honesty were exchanged for petrol station Gerberas. Wallflowers, Icelandic Poppies & Hesperis were paved over, their  place taken by over made up supermarket bunches that loiter in the foyer like cheap hotel tarts.

What are Biennial flowers?

Biennial flowers are sown in the early summer, usually June, during the rest of the year they will produce small amounts of top growth whilst the roots get busy doing what roots do best…the following early spring the plant will rocket forth and will be flowering weeks before your annual flowers have got into their groove.
Now…there are many amongst us who think that waiting nearly nearly a year for flowers is just too long…whilst on the face of it this is an understandable view point, it is nonetheless the wrong view point and it should be rectified. In the Higgledy Garden I grow everything from seed…I don’t grow flowers from bulbs…it’s just not my bag. However, I still want a long flower season…my annuals will flower their socks off until the first frosts of November…(I generally stop harvesting flowers on Halloween and leave the plants to go to seed for the finches)…BUT even my Autumn sown annuals won’t start dancing at the flowery disco until late June, this is where my good old chums the Biennials come into their own as they will get working on producing flowers in May.
Link: The Higgledy Seed Shop
If you have limited space then a widely used system is to sow your biennials in pots in June and then plant them out in September into a bed that has recently been cleared of exhausted annuals. Simples!

Which Biennials Are Best For The Cutting Patch?

Foxys and Hesperis.
Foxys and Hesperis.

*Honesty (Common name) or Lunaria (so named because it’s pale seed pod discs resemble the moon). Honesty flowers make great cut flowers…they last well over a week in the vase and they offer a good dollop of colour when everything is still looking a little drab. They will happily self seed for you too…or collect the seed pods yourself and sow in pots. This way you can plant them out in late summer exactly where you want them…which is one in the eye for chaos theory.

sweet william auricula-eyed
sweet william Auricula-eyed

*Sweet William. Sweet Williams just rock! That’s all there is to it. They smell amazing…look amazing and are all round good eggs. Like all biennials they are a piece of cake to grow from seed. ‘Auricula Eyed’ are a firm and classic favourite. ‘Alba’ and ‘Nigricans’ are regularly used in contemporary floristry….tres a la mode.

Foxgloves are good for your mental health.
Foxgloves are good for your mental health. #Fact!

*Foxgloves. Once again a white foxglove ‘Alba‘ is a pretty essential bit of kit for the home florist…don’t be without it. I also grow ‘Excelsior’ which is very old school…beautiful tall spires with flowers from creamy pink to purple with speckled throats…new to my stock is ‘Apricot’ and it’s proving very popular with the Higgledy regular customers.

Click for ‘Foxglove growing guide’.

Hesperis...action shot from above...
Hesperis…action shot from above…

*Hesperis. So named after the nymphs who wiggled around the tree of life…Goddesses of the evening…and our dear old Hesperis flower releases her scent in the evening. I love this flower…one of my favourites of all the flowers I have ever grown. Simple…pretty…easy to grow…reliable…sturdy…super sexy.

wallflower-fire-king
Sweet William ‘Fire King’

*Wallflower. No biennial bed would be complete without Wallflowers…next season I am stocking ‘Fire king’…this hot rusty orange beastie  will great the senses like an old friend.

Starting biennials from seed is a very straight forward affair…I sow (as always) into 3 inch square pots…your seed trays do not need to be kept in the greenhouse…it will be too hot….I just leave mine somewhere outside and out of the way. Foxglove seeds need to be sown on the surface as they need light to germinate….and that’s about it….oh…plant them out before the September equinox…usually about the 22nd September. Alternatively sow directly into the ground in exactly the same way you would hardy annuals…but in June…not April.

My biennials collection  contains ALL the above and has a 20% discount and free shipping……good old me. ;)

Kindest regards

Benjamin Higgledy.

Related scribbles:

*Half Hardy Annual Flowers

*What Flowers To Grow In The Cutting Garden

*Preparing Cut Flower Beds

 

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
Half Hardy Annual Flowers. Perennial Flowers For The Cut Flower Garden.

Fresh posts!

  • Best biennial flowers for the cutting garden.
  • 9 1/2 reasons to sow biennials in summer for your cutting garden.
  • How to direct sow (into the soil) a cutting patch of annual flowers.
  • Growing Cosmos from seed. March/April/May.
  • Sowing up a flower field in Suffolk.

Sign up for the newsletter!

Once every two months, I send subscribers a discount code or an offer for a heavily discounted bundle of seeds. You won't get inundated with emails... I'm far too lazy for that sort of caper.

Possibly old and musty

  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • July 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • December 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
© Higgledy Garden 2020
site by santa ana limited
Privacy Policy

Join Us

Once every two months, I send subscribers a discount code or an offer for a heavily discounted bundle of seeds. You won't get inundated with emails... I'm far too lazy for that sort of caper.

Join the chat on social media

Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter