Growing Biennials from seed

What I love about twitter is learning form all the gardeners, this year suddenly there was a lot of talk about sewing biennials. What I need to make clear is this started in July. I have had some success with annuals, so thought I should have a look. When reading up, I discovered that included were Sweet Williams and Foxgloves I adore both.

I found a brilliant article from Higgeldy Garden which made it all make sense, so I ordered some seeds from Higgidy Garden and Chiltern seeds.

I planted them all in pots to see if they would germinate. I put a few in each one to see what happened. Some of the seeds were so tiny they got a liberal sprinkling and a hope for the best.

I put them in the mini greenhouse with the roof open and watered and fed regularly, I did have to take them out for a while as it was so hot, they nearly cooked. I was pretty shocked to see many had germinated. It took some a lot longer than others but nearly each pot I had some of the seeds germinate.

A month or so later I pricked some out and and re planted them into some seed trays as individual plants. This was rather time consuming but enjoyable with a cup of tea on a warm summer day.

Here we are, I have a lovely selection of plants that I have kept alive. I am putting them into bigger pots now, my worry is if I plant them out they will become slug food. They are currently in my trough planters and seem very happy.

The next challenge is can I keep them alive over winter, so I can post lots of lovely pictures of them in flower next year.

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