Ahoy there, friends!
As most of you will have assumed by now, I am pretty simple. The working ethos of Higgledy Garden is based around keeping things simple. While some of my customers are expert growers and even commercial growers, many of my customers have busy lives and wish for easy ways to have a patch full of colour and floral abundance. It’s my opinion that there is very little to be gained from growing varieties of cut flowers that are challenging to bring to flower…they are no more beautiful or useful in the vase than our flowery friends that are simple to grow.
As luck would have it, on the whole, the flowers that are the easiest to grow are also the plants that will produce the most flowers….good eh!? :) A good rule of thumb when looking for easy flowers to grow is to look for hardy annuals. Hardy annuals can take a good amount of rough and tumble, including frost and to a big degree, drought too.
FAQ: Oi Higgers, you sculpted Adonis, what are some examples of hardy annuals that are easy to grow?
ANS: Some of my favs are Cornflowers, Calendula, Corncockle, Ammi majus, Daucus carota, Cerinthe, Nigella and Sweet peas. (See photos of all of these HERE.)
Here is a link to a guide on growing hardy annuals.
Some half-hardy annuals are also simple to grow and you wouldn’t want to miss them out. Sunflowers and Cosmos are two examples. Just don’t sow them too early as they are not keen on frost. I keep my cosmos under glass until early May and I check there is no frost on the ten-day forecast before planting them out.
We have a ‘Simples Bundle’ in the shop. 20% off. £17.60 Here’s the blurb:
“This bundle of joy is made up of no less than eleven packets. I’ve chosen these varieties first and foremost because they are super easy to grow. I will post up a guide for newbies on the blog and run a real-time, ‘Grow along with Higgers!’ tutorial in April.
These will provide you with all the forms, colours, and textures you could want from a cutting patch grown from seed.
The packaging is 100% compostable and plastic-free, as ever.
Free shipping.
Here’s a list of what’s in the bundle:
*Sunflower ‘Vanilla Ice’
*Nigella ‘Alba’
*Phacelia
*Godetia ‘Crown’
*Calendula ‘Art Shades’
*Cornflower ‘Classic Romantic’
*Dill ‘Mammoth
*Borage Officinalis
*Cosmos ‘Sensation’
*Chrysanthemum ‘Rainbow Hippy Lovechild’
*Ammi majus
These eleven varieties will give you a great cutting patch on their own, but you could, of course, add other varieties as takes your fancy.
I will be growing these on the blog from late March. (I’d start in April if I was thee…later sown flowers catch up and need less faff.)
If you have any questions, come and find me on the Facebook thingy or search Higgledy Garden on the Instagram or the Twitter. ;)
My top tip is not to sow your seeds too early…late March would be the earliest….although you can sow your sweet peas now. But feel free to buy seeds straight away….we’re running out of Digestives.
Kindest regards
Higgers and Flash.