Ahoy there!
I will keep this brief as it’s too hot to sit inside the boat this afternoon. :)
I’ve sown up a couple of trays of biennials. Foxgloves, Sweet Williams, Honesty, Hesperis, and Wallflowers.
While you can direct sow biennials in June and July, most of haven’t got space in our flower patches…so it can make sense to start them off in pots and plant them out when your annuals have trotted over the rainbow bridge in the autumn.
I use three-inch pots for all my seeds (including annuals). These trays take 44 pots. I plant out all my seedlings at 9 to a square meter. So these two trays will give me about 9 square meters, which is about what I will have space for this year. There is no point is growing hundreds of seedlings that you won’t use….it’s just silly…and you need to pull yourself together.
Sow very thinly…ie just a few seeds in each pot is fine. I thin my seedlings down to just one seedling per pot. This gives the happy seedling plenty of room to wriggle about and enjoy his formative weeks in the pot before being planted outside.
I plant out my biennials close to the autumn equinox, which is roughly the 21st September. I dig out my spent annuals and replace with my biennials. It’s a good idea to dig in some organic material at this time. Keep your soil light and fluffy….you don’t want it forming a ‘hard pan’ when it rains….compost will sort this out.
Your wonderful biennials will flower from early spring and greatly increase not only the length of your flower season but also the variety of plants you have available. This will make you feel good and all your friends will comment on how well you look and secretly wish they could be a little like you.
We have lots of biennials (link) to choose from in the Higgledy seed shop….including a discounted bundle (Link.)
I hope you are enjoying your flower growing adventures!
If you have any questions then please ask away…you can find me on Twitter or Facebook. Should you wish you can join ‘Club Higgledy’ (see the right hand side bar).
Kindest regards
Benjamin Higggledy
PS Here’s a guide to sowing the biennial bundle, in more detail.
