One of the tasks I look forward to every year is sitting down in late August/early September with a large pad, pencils, a ruler and a pot of fresh mint tea for sustenance. So equipped I can start to plan my Cutting Garden for the next year.
I keep a blank drawing of the cutting beds on file, so that every year I can copy it and start planning for next year. I always have a rough idea of what I am going to grow and the colour schemes that I like, but I enjoy making a few changes every year to reflect my current favourite shades and the experiences I have learnt in the last 12 months of growing.
Above is a jugful of hardy annuals sown late last September and picked in mid June. This was the earliest I have ever had hardy annuals in flower! In previous years I have sown all my hardy annuals in the greenhouse in February and started cutting in July. Last year I decided to try autumn sowing. I experimented with a combination of sowing in trays in the greenhouse and sowing rows direct in a Cutting Garden bed, which I then protected with a fleece tunnel.
I have to say that the tunnel was not very successful – only the ammi majus made it through the winter. Also this bed has been very weedy all summer as I could not risk weeding and mulching during the winter when the seedlings were tiny.
It may be that I sowed the seeds too late – perhaps a mid September sowing would have worked better. As I have said before though, my ground is very waterlogged through the winter and perhaps that just did not suit the seedlings.
The lesson I have taken from this is that for me it is best to sow in the greenhouse in September, prick the seedlings out into small pots and overwinter these plants in the cold frames for planting out next March. Seeds sown this way last September were in flower in early June – which is much earlier than my February sown seeds. If your winters are very severe I would suggest sticking to a spring sowing plan. Likewise, if you live in a climate with a short mild winter it is probably best to sow direct in early spring. Trying to grow seedlings in either climate to overwinter in the greenhouse would probably result in floppy drawn plants.
So, having chosen to sow my seeds in the greenhouse in September (probably in the next week or two), I then need to choose my flowers. For 2016 I will be growing:
Ammi majus and Ammi visnaga ‘White’ for their airy umbels.
Briza maxima (the quaking grass) for its lovely rustle and impact in a vase.
Centaurea cyanas ‘Blue Boy’ (cornflowers) for their lovely blue pincushion flower heads.
Cerinthe major ‘Purpurascens’ for its beautiful hooded deep purple bells and silver foliage.
Consolida ‘Dark Blue’ (Larkspur) for its delphinium like blooms.
Euphorbia oblongata – a brilliant acid green and yellow filler plant.
Nigella damascena ‘Deep Blue’ – the prettiest blue flower with lovely seed heads.
Orlaya grandiflora – a more delicate white umbel that I struggle to germinate but try every year with varying success. Unbeatable in the years that it flowers.
Salvia viridis ‘Blue’ (Blue Clary) which is an invaluable lavender blue edging plant, flowering all summer long and great for adding a few uprights to a vase.
I will also be sowing Antirrhinum ‘White Giant’ (snapdragon). Although this is a half hardy annual, so strictly should be sown in March, I have had great success germinating this in September and overwintering the plants in the greenhouse – I keep it inside as I think the cold frames would be too cold if the temperatures were below freezing.
I have also read that Bells of Ireland (another half hardy annual) can be grown in this way, so that will be my experiment this winter – I will let you know in the spring how successful this was.
This summer I was delighted to have a range of beautiful hardy annuals in flower in June to pair with my peonies, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for the same success in 2016. Of course, if anything fails to grow over the winter, I will still have the option of sowing a few more trays in February. On the other hand, if everything is growing well, sowing hardy annuals is one less job I will have to do in February.
So – what are you waiting for? Gardeners it is time to get sowing!!
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Thanks for this Julie. I do love the plotting and planning almost as much as the growing.
And like you, I always like to try out new things – but then don’t like to give up on the old favourites, hence dozens and dozens of seed packets and utter chaos in the greenhouse. Happy days 😉
A beautiful selection for next year’s vases ? Love your vase today, too.
You are certainly correct that some of my plants were leggy because I overwintered them in the greenhouse but I might just try a much later autumn sowing as our mild weather usually continues until Christmas and light levels never fall to the same extent as the UK; I’m never very successful with direct sowing of anything except Californian poppies, but perhaps I should try again. I found Antirrhinum ‘White Giant’ much more hardy than any of the advice says; I had some late sown Antirrhinums in 2014 that were fine all winter and flowered early in spring, some of the plants are actually still flowering so it is definitely worth trying some of those in autumn. Thanks for sharing your thoughts for next year, a timely reminder for us all.
Gosh good timing-thank-you. I was about to put the pop-up greenhouse away for winter but will now sow annuals in a week or two to get a head start next year in the cutting beds.
Thank you for this summary Julie. The two that stand out hugely for me are the Cerinthe major and that heavenly Salvia viridis, which I will certainly be adding to my most wanted list. Gertrude Jekyll said, ‘When in doubt plant a geranium,’ but I am starting to believe that better advice is to plant a Salvia; I put three of them in my border this summer and can see myself easily trebling this next year. Anyway, I think a February sowing is for me in Scotland. It’s not just the protracted cold but the lack of daylight that is the problem here in December.
Lovely post Julie and beautiful photographs. I grew Ammi majus from seed started early on a windowsill, they performed well except once in the borders they seem to be a magnet for blackfly. Do you find the same happens for visnaga?
I am drawing up my list to plant now. No sweet peas?
Good point Brian – I tend to think of sweet peas as a separate crop to my hardy annuals & so forgot to include them here. I will be sowing some this month though.
Thanks for sharing your plans Julie – I shall be growing similar things but have not quite decided whether to leave some of them till spring. It certainly ,made a difference in having some flowering from June though so I will probably sow some in both autumn and spring. Hadn’t thought of larkspur or antirrhinum for autumn sowing so might give that a go. Hopefully I will be making a start this week, a fortnight later than last year.