The March cutting Garden: Let the sowing commence.

Spring has sprung, we have had a spell of mild weather and even some sunshine, yes the sunshine. We haven’t seen much of the sun over this winter so it has been most welcome. The garden is waking up from its slumbers and starting to break out into colour again. The snowdrops and Cyclamen are starting to go over but taking on the baton are the Iris reticulata, Muscari and Narcissus. The Hellebores are still flowering away and the first of the spring perennials like Pulmonaria and Corydalis are starting to flower. These are much welcomed by the first emerging bees, I saw my first big bumblebee of the year at the weekend. A bit dozy but enjoying the sunshine, me and the bee. Out in the countryside the first blossom is out in the hedgerows, the wild garlic leaves are fresh and green and I saw my first new shoots of Hawthorn in a sheltered spot on Friday. The birds have gone crazy too, we have a Song thrush that day and night is singing away, it’s so loud with its repetitive notes.

Some spring treasures from my garden in early March 

Its a fresh start in the garden, a new year in the cutting garden and although I have plenty of flowers coming through and plants to get planted, now is the time for my main seed sowing. Its an exciting time of year with full of promise for the growing year ahead. Its a clean slate with lots of good intentions but I think that is one of the joys of gardening, each year you try again, learn from last year, experiment and tweak your methods and garden. I have found little methods and ways that I like to sow but ask the next gardener and they will have different ones. Some of that will be due to your location in the UK which will guide to some extent when you start sowing but everyone finds what works for them. There are lots of ways to do it but my advice for people new to sowing is just give it a try! Experiment, sow small amounts of seeds and see what works for you.

I’m chomping at the bit to get cracking with my seed sowing. I like to spread it out a bit over a few weeks so that I don’t have a mass of things to prick out all in one go. So I’ve started with the hardier annuals and also any of the half hardy annuals that take a while to get growing, like Phlox and Rudbeckia. I tend to sow into seed trays or pots rather than direct into the soil although I make an exception for a few things like Daucus carota ‘Dara’ which I’ve already sown direct into one of my flower beds. Plus Nigella ‘Delft Blue’ which doesn’t like disturbance. Plus I might do the same with Dill this year. Phacelia is good to direct sow too.

If sowing direct, prepare the bed by clearing any weeds and rake over so that the soil is nice and loose and friable (posh word for crumbly and light!). Water where you are going to sow and let the water drain away. Then you can either broadcast sow, this is where you sow seed over the whole area, or you can sow in rows. The advantage of sowing in rows is you can spot any weed seeds that germinate in between the rows and can confidently remove them. Lightly cover with compost or soil and wait. Once germinated you may need to thin out the seedlings so they are not too close together.

As always full information on sowing for each variety is found in the Higgledy garden seed sowing guide.

If you are new to seed sowing hardy annuals are the easiest seeds to start with. There are a few things that you need to get started. I tend to sow in modules, pots and trays, I have a collection of plastic pots etc that I reuse every year but you can sow into the plastic trays that you get from the supermarket or yoghurt pots but you must make holes in the bottom for drainage. You need a good peatfree compost, I use Sylvagrow which is nice and fine for seed sowing but I sometimes give it a sieve to get rid of any chunky bits. Simply put: add compost to your container, water, sow the seeds and cover lightly with compost and you are away.

For the seed sowing, some seeds are large enough for you to be able to space them apart in the seed tray or sow individually in modules or pots. If the seed is really fine and small, like Foxgloves or Nicotiana then just try and sprinkle thinly. For all seed sowing I hardly ever sow the whole packet, just sow in small amounts, wrap them back up and store in a cool place. Then you can make second sowings or resow if any problems or just save for next year. Seed is precious. Watering is best done by watering the soil in the pots before you sow or sit the trays and pots in a container of water and allow the water to soak up from below. Otherwise if you water from above you risk displacing all your carefully placed seeds and in the case of fine seeds they can all end up washed to the end of your seed tray. I talk from experience here, with a rash of foxglove seedlings all in a mass making it really tricky to prick out.

Make sure you label them in some way, you might think you will remember but believe me you never do. I then put the trays or pots in my unheated greenhouse, which warms up in the day and is protected from the worst cold at night, a coldframe would be great too but any sheltered spot in your garden will be fine and you can even direct sow now. If you have weed seedlings starting to germinate in your garden it shows that it is a warm enough temperature for hardy annuals to germinate.

Then is the time to be patient, some germinate quickly, others think about it a bit but once you have little seedlings then depending on what you have sown them in you might need to prick them out. So if you have sown the seeds in a seed tray they will likely all come up together and start jostling a bit for space and they will soon run out of nutrients so they need moving on into their own little pot. Fill a pot loosely with compost, with a pencil or dibber make a hole for the seedling, then holding the seedling carefully by the leaves use the dibber again to get down into the seedtray so that you can get as much root as you can and gently tease the seedling out of the seed tray. Transfer to the pot and pull the compost back around the seedling so its snuggly in place, water and label. Once you have done it a few times you will get the knack. Its at this point you realise why you sow thinly so that the roots are not too entwined and that you can easily pull the seedlings apart from each other. Once they have grown on in their pots and they are nice little plants you can plant them out in your garden.

And thats it, a brief guide to seed sowing I just urge you to give it a go, its one of my favourite things in life. The simplicity of it but then when they germinate I still get so much joy even though I’ve been sowing flowers from seed for years. The satisfaction in growing flowers in your garden from little tiny seeds, it can’t be topped.

So top of the list for sowing now are the Calendula, I don’t want to be without this cheery flower in my plot. Its really easy from seed, the seed is a nice size to handle so you can space them out in a seed tray or sow direct into modules. My favourite by far is Calendula ‘Snow Princess’ as it goes with so many other flowers but if you want a bit of pizzazz then you can’t go wrong with the vibrant orange of Calendula ‘Indian Prince’.

Salvia ‘Oxford Blue’ and Salvia viridis with its mixed colours are next on the list. Not everyone grows this but I have to say it’s one of the most productive plants in my cutting patch and it’s a must for me. It’s so long flowering, it will flower from June/July and keep going till the first frosts if you keep picking it.

Cornflowers are another brilliant hardy annual to sow now, I have lots to plant out from an autumn sowing but I will sow some more to extend the season. Again they are pretty long flowering if you are super diligent about deadheading them. My favourites are Cornflower ‘Black Ball’ and ‘Blue Ball’ which mix well with multiple colour schemes. Godetia ‘Crown’, a bit of an old-fashioned flower but such a good reliable flower for cutting. Cerinthe which I talked about in a recent blog, I will be sowing some more of those. Such a brilliant foliage plant.

Two great fillers to sow right now are also Ammi visnaga and Ammi majus. I missed out sowing Ammi majus in the autumn so I sowed this a few weeks back and it has germinated now so I need to get it pricked out and potted on. Ammi visnaga I sowed in the autumn and they are growing nicely. But it’s easy to sow now too. Echium ‘Blue Bedder’ and Borage are two beautiful blues that are really worth growing in your garden if you want to support your bees even if you are not bothered about cutting them. Corncockle is another one where I have some plants from an autumn sowing but I also recently sowed the new Corncockle ‘Queen’ and have had fantastic germination on those. But they can still be sown now. They flower at a similar time to the Cornflowers and make great buddies in an arrangement. Lavatera ‘Mont Blanc’ which was new to me last year and I really loved it, again it was long flowering. I’m looking forward to growing that again.

I’m also sowing a few half hardy annuals now that need a longer growing season. These you need to sow with some warmth so on a windowsill inside, like I do or you can use a heated propagator or heat mat that give bottom heat to the pots. I’m going to sow lots of Phlox, you can’t have enough of that sumptuous Phlox ‘Crème Brulee’ with its peachy tones. Actually Phlox is a bit different, they need light excluding for good germination so make sure you cover them well with compost and they need some warmth too.

Rudbeckia is also quite slow from sowing to flowering time so I like to start this early and undercover. The seed is small so I sow in seed trays and once germinated prick out into pots and grow on before planting once the frosts have passed. Rudbeckia ‘Marmalade’ such a cheery flower with its little brown button nose like a chocolate button.

I hope this has inspired you to get out into your garden and do a bit of seed sowing, I promise you it will bring you lots of joy and also colour to your garden. Next month I will be seed sowing of other half hardy annuals like Cosmos, Zinnias and Sunflowers. Ooh such an exciting time.

Happy sowing

Higgledy Anne

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