In your flower garden
Start these beautiful blooms off now to fill your garden next year
Biennials can sometimes seem arduous to grow: impatient gardeners may crave more instant gratification, but, rest assured, the wait is worth it.
Sow biennial seed now, and you can look forward to a beautiful, colourful display next year.
In the first year, biennials grow a basal rosette and then flower, set seed and die in the following year. Their life cycle is completed over two years and incorporates an essential period of winter cold, which stimulates flowering, known as vernalisation. Once biennials have set seed, they’ll often return each year.
Many stunning cottage garden flowers are biennial, such as hollyhocks, honesty, wallflowers and columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris). Not only are their blooms beautiful, but they’re also perfect for pollinators. Many also bridge the gap between the end-ofspring-bulb blooms and the wait for summer perennials to pop, ensuring the garden has floral interest in those in-between months. Foxgloves and verbascum seeds need light to germinate, but most biennials can be sown in trays of seed compost covered with a thin sprinkling of sieved peat-free compost. Keep trays well watered and place in a warm spot out of scorching sun. Pot on when seedlings are large enough to handle and plant outside in autumn.
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Digitalis purpurea albiflora is a white-flowered foxglove and an elegant alternative to the traditional purple one that adorns woodland. Ideal for shady borders.
Brightly coloured, sun-loving sweet william (Dianthus barbatus) is a highly fragrant, long-flowering plant that makes fabulous cut flowers.
Spiky Dipsacus fullonum, or teasel, entices pollinators in summer and seed-seeking birds in winter. These tall wild flowers make excellent dried flowers.
Angelica archangelica is an edible, architectural plant that needs space, but rewards with bold lime-green flower heads, adding structure to borders.
Tie in gangly clematis
Clematis foliage will be romping away now, and while it tends to climb and twine quite well on supports, it needs a bit of help, or it will get all tangled. Spread out and tied-in neatly, the plant will flower and grow better, and look a little neater, too. Use the softest ties you can, as clematis stems are delicate.
Tidy under hedges
Hedges can quickly become smothered with overzealous selfseeders or encroaching grass from lawn edges competing with them for water and nutrients. Take action and uproot weeds, trim edges or remove turf to give the hedge’s roots more room. The term ‘weed’ simply means a plant growing in the ‘wrong’ place. Hand weed
