Growing flowers from seed

Luckygirl, it very much depends on which seeds you are planting. If you pop into your local garden centre or Morrisons you will find stands of both vegetable and flower seeds. Look on the back of the packets you want to sow and you'll find a chart with coloured blocks indicating best times to sow and when to expect flowers to bloom or vegetables to be ready for use. The great thing is that you'll save so much money by growing your own in this way and it's very satisfying to see the finished product.
Happy gardening!

Some seeds need soaking, others need extreme cold before they will germinate. It’s easy to check the conditions on the internet.
Invest in a hand spray to keep the seed compost moist. Normal watering techniques will flood the seeds an young plants.
At the moment you could sow foxgloves, sweet Williams and Lupins they will take till next year to flower. They be ok outside in a raised sheltered spot and then put in the cold frame to overwinter.

If growing annuals, make a note of whether they are hardy, half hardy or tender. Hardy annuals can be sown in the late summer or early autumn. They will make a sturdy little plant that should overwinter successfully unless the winter is really extreme. They will flower early in the following year.

Half-hardy annuals don't like frost and won't overwinter in a frosty area but can survive a few cold nights in the spring. Tender annuals won't survive any frost so shouldn't be planted out until all risk of frost is past.

You can use your cold frame to harden off tender plants before planting out.

This is a really useful book....and cheap!

Oh great - lots of thanks to you all. I have just pushed the boat out and ordered the book!!

At the moment I m growing chillis from seed on my kitchen window sill I have an empty (washed out) lotion spray bottle that I water them with every other day, Other seeds get scattered in the garden ( I love wild gardens as opposed to manicured gardens) and left to their own devices I ve got three different types of poppies, marigolds, cornflowers foxgloves and sweet pease that all come from last years flowers and were scattered I also cleaned the back alley and threw marigold and poppies along the side I thought the kids that come through the alley can pick them for their mums

I like the idea of scattering seeds and I too like a jumble rather than a formal garden.........but how do you tell the little seedlings from weeds when they first come up!?

When we were first married I bought a packet of seeds,scattered them outside,watered regularly and carefully followed all the instructions.
I was thrilled but a little disappointed when only one little plant surfaced. However I continued to water and feed it and it eventually flowered ..........the world’s most pampered buttercup!!!! ?
Hope you have more success than me Luckygirl

how do you tell the little seedlings from weeds when they first come up!?

You should be able to tell once they get their first true leaves. If in doubt leave it a bit longer and see what develops. Rogues should be easy enough to pull up when they're still small.

I've never had any success with scattering seeds. I have self seeders that grow like weeds (especially in a gravelled area) but deliberate seed scattering results in .... zilch

Growing perennials from seed is very satisfying, especially when you see the price of plants in garden centres.. A nice thing about them is that you don't have to keep sowing them every year .

One way of marking a patch is to mix some sand with the seeds before you scatter them. Once the seedlings appear you can protect the area with some sticks to stop you treading on them or accidentally pulling them up. You will still get weeds but with a little practice you'll be able to identify the seedlings and leave them alone. They'll eventually need thinning out though.

Have a look at the RHS website - lots of info on there. Enjoy your gardening!

GranEd - love that!!!

Thanks for all your help folks!

Hello Luckygirl and good morning! Welcome to the world of the joy of gardening which I have now found is completely different to just gardening. I take my hat off to you and wish you success with growing from seed. I admit to complete failure in that zone. I now buy mostly plugs and appreciate the success rate by comparison. I let the professionals do the difficult and reap the rewards of their skills and patience. I would never have believed that little old me would end up with a garden that gives me so much pleasure (and hard graft!) after being reared in a city flat with neither ownership, access or interest. Just wonderful and I'm so grateful. May your green fingers go from success to success. Bravo!

When you find the answer, Luckygirl, would you let me know. Every year I plant seeds, watch them start to grow, kill them off and go to buy ready grown ones from the shops. Sometimes I kill them off too! My husband cringes at the beginning of Spring, I always start with renewed optimism.

I used to raise seedlings by sowing seeds in seed raising mix in planter trays. Cover them till you see the beginnings of growth then take the cover off and when they've got two leaves prick them out into pots . I'm too lazy to do that now and buy seedlings from the plant shop!

Find an independent nursery, buy some plants and seeds from them when it's not too busy and talk to them. They will help you choose, advise you, they will be great.

It takes time to be able to distinguish weeds from plants so don't fret about it. Just this year some very impressive seedlings appeared below my bird feeder. I moved them, tended them with water and fertiliser and suddenly they grew 12 inches almost overnight. I knew I had seen the leaf before then I woke in the middle of the next night hell bent on annihilation- it was Indian Balsam, a weed that spreads like wildfire given half a chance. (I know the experienced gardeners will have been thinking of something else but no luck there). Gardening is a constant learning experience however long you've been at it. Best of luck.

Luckygirl you can Google the name of the flower you are growing and add the word leaf to get photos of them so that you know what they should look like.
If only it was that easy as there are rogues about who pop in to the seed trays with their very similar leaves, drink the water, eat the feed and bully your own much wanted little ones before you realise what is happening!

Some plants grow easily from scattered seeds and others require a more tender upbringing.
Love in a mist, Candytuft, Californian Poppy and Laveteria are good ones to scatter in March. If you let them seed and die down in Autumn, you’ll probably find they self seed and pop up all by themselves.

Love a natural garden, self seeding fox gloves, aquilegia and love in the mist. My attempts at scattering have been unsuccessful but the "garden news" is £1.99 you get great advice and two packets of seed each week. Keep gardening what ever ?

luckygirl - you and me both! I am very new to it, and whereas (to paraphrase) some are born to gardening, some achieve gardening, and some have gardening forced upon them, I definitely fell into the latter category when a couple of years ago, my husband bought me a huge raised trough thing, and a book "Grow All You Can Eat In Three Feet".

I am really enjoying it and have branched out into flowers this year. I have grown Nicotania from seed, as I remember my mum used to grow them and the evening fragrance is heavenly. I have had some success and I have got about nine little plants thriving, from the handful of seeds I planted.

I grew strawberries from bought plants the first year, and got very brave and grew more plants from the original six or so, by doing a google search on how to do this, and fell upon a YouTube chanel called Project Diaries. This is a young man who has health problems and not much money, so does as much for free or as cheap as possible. I really like his videos, and so we have "made" strawberry plants out of the existing ones (but lost quite a few over the winter, sadly), and husband got in on the bandwagon and has followed the instructions to (a) make compost with coffee grounds and woodshavings, and (b) grown potatoes from some we had which had sprouted. We can't wait to harvest them and see how our free potatoes have fared.

But like you - I'm stumped when it comes to identifying weeds from seedlings

I use old milk bottles with holes punches in the lids as watering cans - one hole, two holes etc up to five holes so I can control the flow of the water.

I am enjoying this thread, and the tips I've picked up already!

A little bit of advice I would give you is to see if you have a local gardening club or neighbours who have established plots. They will often be willing to give you spare plants. For instance, I've far too many foxgloves - can't control them - and yet I see lesser plants of this species on sale for £6:99. Blimey! I regularly give and receive different species to and from neighbours. Even if you don't want some of them permanently, they can help to fill in spaces until you replace them with plants you really want. Just a thought.

I've done a lot of gardening in my time, and soon found that buying established plants was more sensible.
Seedlings are so vulnerable - either weeds will overwhelm them, or cats will scratch them up to make a toilet, or they'll wither away.
The only exceptions are maybe wild flower seeds and various types of beans.
But that's just my view - don't let it put you off if you want to experiment. I've seen tv programmes where Monty Don
shows you how to plant seeds in your greenhouse.

Have a look at Mr Fothergill's - great selection of flower seeds, plus an extensive advice page. I use it as bible when it comes to sorting my planting plan for the year

I grew peas in a big pot one year. My GC visited and picked the peas, podded them and ate them raw. It kept them happy for quite a long time.

I like dwarf french beans so grow them in a pot and pick them when I need them.