When Do I Start My Flower Seeds?
The answer it depends. Many new or aspiring gardeners have asked themselves this question well dreamily looking at seeds, purchasing them then casting there dreams of a lush garden grown by seed into the abyss when they plant the seed out to early or due to indecision not plant them at all. Myself, I was the latter sowing seed much too early only for the majority of them to perish much too early.
Ask yourself these question’s first where do I live and find out your last frost date to save yourself the agony of watching your young plants withering away because you cant plant them out due to frost the grim reaper of many susceptible plants. How about are the plants your looking to grow from seed annual, biennial, or perhaps perennial. Lastly how much space do you have and lighting because those cute little puppy like plants will need to be potted up and take up much more room. Let’s talk about this stuff to help you learn and avoid some of the pitfalls.
Annuals are a plant that doesn’t come back every year whose sole purpose is to grow up as soon as possible, look fabulous, get pregnant, set seed and die. They are the partiers, I’m not here for a long time I’m here for a good time member of the flower group. Annual seed if you’re looking to start them indoors, start them 4 to 6 weeks before your last frost date. They will grow quickly and you can get them in the ground right on time. If you’re looking to plant the seed outside which you can do, but I don’t because you can control the variables if grown inside then you can plant the seed as soon as you can easily work the ground. The biggest thing, I love about annuals you can keep planting more so you can keep the party going right up until first frost.
Biennials are one of the more misunderstood type of plants, I have seen them mislabeled as well. They grow their first year, bloom their second year and thats it. Biennials are the plant who was doing everything right in life, but had an unfortunate accident much to early just when they were just starting to blossom. Biennials are plants like foxglove, hollyhock, some delphinium, canterbury bells. Sowing them indoors plant them in late spring or early summer so they can grow and bloom the following year. I made the mistake of starting seed much to early one year many bloomed the first year they were foxgloves, but they grew very quickly and took up a bunch of space messing with my plans, but it was my fault. Most biennial seeds as with all seed fall to the ground then depending on where you live sit dormant in my case about 6 months so keep that in mind. If you’re looking to sow them outside biennial seed can be sown in the fall or in the spring when your ground is workable. An overlooked benefit of a biennial like foxglove is that it gives you a display of green during those cold winter days.
Perennials are the responsible adults of the group they grow have children every year before succumbing to old age. There are short lived perennials 3-5 years or long lived perennials that live much longer. Growing perennials from seed may seem straight forward and for the most part it is. The majority of perennial seed can be planted indoors, I prefer sometime around January letting them bulk up a bit before planting out before the last frost date. The one caveat being on the type of plant and the area you live in. For example I want to grow delphinium and blue poppies. I will start the delphinium in January, but the blue poppies I will start in November at the latest December because they are extremely slow growing and don’t do well as a young plant with heat getting scorched and dying. So research ask around or you can also figure it out by trial by fire whatever works for you. If you want to plant your perennial seed outside go ahead and sow in late fall or when the ground is workable in the spring. Why grow perennials in your garden? Not only are they beautiful, but they also offer great stability for your garden giving you something to build the rest of your garden off of.
Growing flowers from seed is so rewarding knowing you’ve overcome the odds to grow such a beautiful plant. No matter what type of flower you grow from seed annual, biennial, or perennial one is not better than the other do what you want to do and enjoy growing what you want to grow, and save some money by growing from seed.
