Let’s start with the basics: what the heckers is a biennial? Well, in a nutshell, it’s a seed you sow typically between June and July for plants that flowers the following Spring. (If you prefer the Oxford Dictionary definition, it’s any plant that lives for two years, producing flowers in the second year. But, I prefer my simpler version, don’t you?) Now that we are happy with what a biennial is let’s delve into why you absolutely need to grow these wonderful flowers!
- Your Future Self Will Thank You: Sowing biennials today leads to uber floral abundance later. Yes it takes a year for them to grow but it’s an investment in future beauty, and they are an absolute doddle to grow. I promise next year you will be thanking yourself for growing them, and even possibly the year after too especially with plants like honesty where you can save seed pods for stunning arrangements in the depths of winter and following yea after! You will be doing your future self a massive solid if you grow these now!
- Filling the Cut Flower Gap: Ever feel that hunger for fresh-cut flowers once the tulips fade but the roses haven’t quite started? Biennials step in perfectly to fill that gap, ensuring continuous beauty in your arrangements.
- Cheap and Easy: A few minutes of sowing can yield armfuls of flowers next year. It’s a cost-effective way to add immense beauty to your garden without breaking the bank, and lets face it most other spring flowering plants like bulbs, perennials and shrubs are expensive. You get way more bang for your buck with biennials!
- Direct Sowing Delight: If you have the space, you can directly sow biennials in a weed-free section of your garden and watch them flourish next year with minimal effort, just as Mother Nature intended. They literally couldn’t be easier, and if you’ve found you’ve had any disasters from slugs eating spring sown seedlings or any plants have died or underperformed for you, just whip them out and quickly scatter some biennial seeds in their place, it’s a fab way to make a something that felt a bit like a failure turn into an instant success!
- No Greenhouse Needed: Unlike some plants, biennials don’t require a greenhouse to thrive. You can grow them in pots outside or directly in a cleared bed with no fuss. In fact if you do have a greenhouse I would actively avoid putting your biennials in there just as they start to grow and the temperatures rise you don’t want your flowers to scorch and wilt under the hot sun and glass, so keep it simple and keep them outside they crack on very easily with just the usual watering and nothing else needed.
- Feel Smug Ahead of Time: Picture this: it’s not even autumn yet, but you’re already feeling smug because you’ve got a head start on next year’s flowers. That’s the joy of biennials – you can plan ahead and enjoy the satisfaction early. You can sip your margherita whilst you sow your seeds, quietly admiring yourself for being a most organised gardener ahead of schedule!
- Wow Factor on a Budget: Biennials offer a real wow factor without costing a fortune. Things like roses and tulips can be pricey, lets face it you need a good number of tulips to put on an impressive show and your expensive new roses can take years to establish, so as stunning as they are both can be costly to get wow factor. Whereas a simple packet of biennial seeds can yield towering, dramatic, frothy stunning plants in just one year. Winner- winner floral dinner!
- Season Extenders: Biennials don’t just bloom for a brief moment; they massively extend the flowering season from April to June, ensuring your garden stays vibrant and alive for longer. Starting with Wallflowers flowering in April, followed by Honesty, then Hesperis (Sweet Rocket), then Foxgloves, then Sweet Williams, and finally Canterbury Bells and Daucus in mid June! They put on one heck of a show for literally months!
- High Demand Flower Time: If you’ve ever sold cut flowers or plan on selling cut flowers then you will know that Spring particularly April – June is often when most people are desperately craving cut flowers more than any other time of year, after a long Winter everyone is craving colour, and freshness and biennials are a smart way to offer your customers plenty of flowers for a low cost, high profit reward in the high demand Spring time when most other plants at that time of year like bulbs, shrubs and perennials are quite costly to you per stem. If you’re planning on making profit from your flowers next Spring then biennials are an absolute must to grow!
- Simply Gorgeous: Lastly they are just drop dead gorgeous flowers. Aside from the fact that they flower at a really good time, are cost effective, extend your season and have wow factor, these flowers are simply stunning! Beyond all the practical reasons, biennials are just drop-dead gorgeous. Imagine a garden filled with scented wallflowers, towering foxgloves, frothy honesty, Hesperis and Daucus, with scented Sweet Williams, and magical Canterbury bells – it’s a scene straight out of a Chelsea Flower Show gold medal garden. These flowers are just drop dead gorgeous and a garden would be sorely lacking without biennials.
So to sum up, if you’re not already sowing biennials, then get your derriere quickly into action and grow some! You don’t want miss out on a a tonne of spring beauty, and joy in your garden. So, grab those seeds, roll up your sleeves, and get ready to enjoy the wonders of biennials next spring! They’re a doddle to grow and your future self will be doing skips and cartwheels next year! (P.s if you enjoy sow along videos that you can copy along with then every day for a week from the 10th of June to the 16th of June I will be doing a biennial sow along on my Instagram – @colourwheelgarden where you are invited to join in! So bring your favourite beverage and biennial seeds and lets enjoy some happy biennial sowing together!)
As always happy sowing, and TTFN – Ta-ta for now!
Higgledy Gemma – If you want to give me a follow you can find me on Instagram and Tik-Tok and Threads as colour wheel garden!