As I write this its a chilly grey day, its a day for having the fairy lights on or lighting a few candles. Sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee, a cat and a good book. I’ve not ventured into the garden at all apart from to top up the bird feeders. Today I have no real inclination to get out and sow any seeds but I just know as soon as we get a hint of sunshine and a few dry days that I will be yearning to get out there and get going. But hold your horses, think of those seeds, would you want to be pushed into that cold wet soil with hardly any sunlight to urge you up out of the ground. In many cases they will just rot off or put on weak spindly growth. If I don’t feel like going out I know the seeds won’t either. Summer will come though!January I always think of as the time for planning, of taking stock, it can be a bit of a cliche but its the one time of year that I do have a bit more time. I’ve been having a sort out of my seed boxes, getting rid of any old packets, binning any that I know I don’t want to grow again this year and generally getting an idea of what I want to reorder. I have a few new ones on my list that I want to grow and ones that were a bit of a failure for me last year and that I want another go at (the slugs were a horror last year). Now is the exciting planning time, but get your seeds ordered now and then you are all ready for the seed sowing year.
Have a bit of a tidy up of your seed sowing bits and pieces, I’m very lucky to have a potting shed in my garden now. I used to seed sow on the kitchen table in my old house and thats fine but having a potting shed or a potting space means that you can leave things out, have everything around you and just shut the door at the end of the day. Though that does mean that it can get a bit messy. So I’ve been tidying up my seed trays and pots, making sure I have plenty of clean labels. I’ve got some new compost in, I use Melcourts Sylvagrow peat free multipurpose compost. For any really fine and small seeds I might sieve it first to get rid of any really chucky bits.
How long it will stay tidy is anyones guess!
I really try hard to not sow much in January but there are a few things that can be started in February that you can be getting seed ready for now. I will write about sowing these in more detail in a separate blog. The first is Cobaea scandens, that tropical looking beauty that can reward you with late flowers in September and October. They need a long growing season to really do well especially in my northern garden. But there are couple of things that you have to be aware of, the first being they need warmth to germinate so a heated propagator or I use a windowsill with a radiator below it. Then you will need to keep it warm and growing steadily until after the frosts have passed and you can plant them out which can be 4-5 months if you sow them in January. So hence better to wait till February when the light is a bit better and they will still have plenty of time. But get your seeds ordered and then you are ready to go.
Same can be said for many of the perennials, like Gaura ‘The Bride’, Echinacea ‘Primadonna Pink’ and Knautia ‘Melton Pastels’. I think February is a good time for those and these again will have to be sown in a warm, bright place and kept inside till the spring so you need to have the space and the conditions. Finally Larkspur, we have two varieties ‘Imperials’ and ‘Giant Hyacinth’, these can sometimes be a bit tricky to germinate and can often get kickstarted by a cold spell. They need a cold spell to break the dormancy in the seed. Hence why you can start these off early allow them to go through a cold spell in your greenhouse and then they will get going. Or avoid this step by putting the seed packet in your fridge for a couple of weeks. Here is the gorgeous vibrant blue of Larkspur ‘Imperials’.
But fear not for those intrepid hardy gardeners there are things that you can sow now and the main one being sweet peas. Now many of you will know how much I love sweet peas, as far as I’m concerned no cutting garden should be without them. I tend to sow some in the autumn, it takes away some of the seed sowing in the spring. Mine are sat in the unheated greenhouse just ticking over now in this cold spell. I protected them with a bit of a fleece blanket im that really cold spell we had last week, it got down to -2.5 degrees in my greenhouse, but they are fine. I gave them a good water yesterday. Its a fine balance you don’t want to over water them but you don’t want them to dry out either so they do need keeping an eye on. But I will also sow some more now.
They are ideal for sowing now, but they will do better with some warmth for germination. Some people suggest nicking the seeds with a knife or soaking them but I’ve never found the need to do that they all germinate well without. I sow into roottrainers or 9cm pots, sowing one or two per pot and they should germinate within a couple of weeks especially quicker if given some warmth so maybe on a heated propagator or simply on a sunny windowsill. There is the more general advice in the Higgledy Garden seed sowing guide. But once germinated they can go out into an unheated greenhouse or a sheltered spot in the garden. Ben has a genius hack for those without a greenhouse and that is to put in a big clear, plastic storage box which protects from the worst of the weather and the lid can be opened on warmer days to let in some ventilation.
They can be pinched out if they do start getting too leggy or after they have produced 2 or 3 sets of leaves. That just means nipping off the top growth down to the next leaf, leaving two sets of leaves below that point. Then you will get shoots emerging further down and you will get a nice bushier plant.
Hopefully my autumn sown varieties will be able to be planted out in late March, but from a winter sowing they will be good for planting in April. You really just have to play it by ear according to what the weather is like in early spring. But there is no pressure you can sow sweet peas from now until April.
Here are some of my favourite combinations from last year. This bunch has ‘Alan Williams’, ‘Eclipse’ a vibrant pink and ‘Beaujolais’ a rich dark purple.
This bunch has again ‘Alan Williams’ isn’t he is a great mingler, ‘Swan Lake’ a gorgeous pure white’ and ‘Noel Sutton’ a hard to describe bluey-pink.
If you want to be a bit patriotic, chose ‘Swan Lake’ and ‘Noel Sutton’ and combine with ‘Winston Churchill’ a nice deep red!
From the top and clockwise round, the clear white flower is ‘Swan lake’, ‘Winston Churchill’, ‘Eclipse’, ‘Alan Williams’, ‘Noel Sutton’, ‘Flagship’, ‘Beaujolais’, ‘Nimbus’ with ‘Jilly’ in the middle. 
Excitingly we have a couple of new varieties this year. The first is Sweet pea ‘Mrs R Bolton’, we like to have a good range of the single colour cultivars and this one is a nice peachy colour, which will look fabulous in with the pastel shades of sweet peas. I can’t wait to try it with other peachy coloured annuals like Cosmos ‘Apricotta’ and Phlox ‘Creme Brulee’. Or the dark tones of Cornflower ‘Black Ball’ and the dusky blues of ‘Cerinthe’.
The second is Sweet pea ‘Sir Jimmy Shand’, this is a lovely variety with a ripple colour effect across the flower. But this is a lighter shade of lilac in the stripes and ripples. Again this is probably more in the pastel tone end of the sweet pea colour range. This cultivar also has a frill to the petals, nice long stems and a good scent too.
I think this will go lovely the lilacs of Hesperis ‘Purple‘ and Canterbury bells.
We have a brilliant bundle offer at the moment for the sweet peas. This year we have gone for an upbeat mix of colours, some single colour varieties. Rich red of ‘Winston Churchill’, dark purple blue of ‘Flagship’, dark Lavender wavy flowers of ‘Leamington’ and pure white of ‘Swan Lake’. Then ‘Starry Night’ which is a vibrant mix of shades. Plus the King of all sweet peas ‘Cupani’. This is the variety everyone should grow for that amazing scent.
Click here for the discounted bundle.
Higgledy Anne
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