Tag Archives: flowers

Spring Flowers: Fall Sowing

If you garden at all in the fall, you probably think primarily about leafy greens and root crops. The big focus is garlic, perennial onions, and tough vegetables that can overwinter in hoop houses and cold frames. However, fall is also a great time to start working on next season’s flower garden. 

Fall sown seeds will bloom earlier, helping you create a colorful garden throughout spring and summer. They won’t grow during the winter but will take off in the spring much faster than spring-sown flowers. Fall sowing can also allow you to direct sow more seeds rather than start them indoors in the spring. 

Cool-season annuals, flowers that readily self-sow, perennials, biennials, and native flowers are generally good choices for fall sowing. Some flowers like certain varieties of echinacea and Dara will grow better when fall sown. This is because these seeds require a cold period to germinate well. 

Helen Mt. Johnny Jump-Up

Flowers you can sow this fall include:

Generally, it’s best to sow or transplant these flowers 4 to 6 weeks before your first fall frost. You’ll notice that many flowers are dropping seeds around this time. This gives them time to establish a good root system before winter begins. Sow these flower seeds in beds that receive full sun. Prepare your bed ahead of time by loosening the soil with a garden fork or broad fork, adding a couple of inches of well-aged compost, and raking it smooth. Plant each variety as usual, according to packet instructions. 

Northern gardeners may need to provide their plants with extra protection such as low tunnels or wait until early spring.

You may also want to consider preparing for next summer by gathering materials for staking or trellising flowers that require it, such as sweet peas and hollyhocks. If you’re growing cut flowers, setting up a horizontal netting while the plants are still small and allowing the flowers to grow up through it can help keep them straight and tidy.

Cottage Garden: Growing Hollyhocks

Hollyhocks are tall, easy to grow, biennial flowers. They’re perfect for adding a colorful backdrop to garden beds and look excellent along fences. Hollyhocks are a mainstay in English and cottage-style gardens and are great for attracting bees.

As biennials, they don’t bloom their first year. They spend the first year growing attractive dark green rosettes of foliage and storing energy. In the second year, the tall stalks grow, and the hollyhocks bloom and produce seed. They typically bloom from around June until August.

These incredible flowers are native to Southwest and Central Asia. Their roots were often used in herbal medicine. The blooms are also edible and can be used to make tea.

At SESE, we offer two hollyhock varieties.

Black Hollyhocks

This dramatic heirloom is a show-stopper in any cottage garden and dates back to pre-1830. It features magnificent spikes of satiny blue-black single flowers that form the second year from first-year leafy 18 inch leaf rosettes. 

Find seeds here.

Outhouse Hollyhocks

This mixed-color beauty was traditionally grown around outhouses. The spires of single pink, white, red, and burgundy flowers grow up to 9 feet tall and made perfect screens for outhouses. You didn’t have to ask where the bathroom was; you could just look for the hollyhocks!

Find seeds here.

Outhouse Hollyhocks

Planting & Care

Hollyhocks can be grown with relative ease. They can be started indoors or direct sown. They germinate best when the soil temperature is around 60°F. Germination can take 14 to 21 days; you’ll have to be patient with these flowers!

Location

When planting out, select a location with well-drained soil and full sun. As tall plants with heavy flowers, Hollyhocks do best in areas sheltered from the wind. They thrive in fertile soil with a neutral pH.

Spacing

Hollyhocks are large, tall flowers, so proper spacing is crucial, plant them 12 to 24 inches apart. If they’re too crowded, hollyhocks are also susceptible to rust (Puccinia malvacearum), a fungal disease that typically begins on the lower leaves.

Watering

Watering your hollyhocks is most important when they’re germinating and newly planted. Keep them consistently moist during this time. After they’re established, hollyhocks are quite drought tolerant. Over-watering established plants can make them more prone to lodging and diseases.

Staking

Hollyhocks benefit from a bit of support and can be prone to lodging, especially in windy areas. Grow hollyhocks along a fence, trellis, or use stakes to keep flower stalks upright. 

Should I Deadhead Hollyhocks?

As with many flowers, deadheading hollyhocks isn’t necessary, but it can encourage them to bloom more. However, deadheading hollyhocks means you will get fewer seeds. Many gardeners like to save seeds from hollyhocks and re-plant or let them self-sow. Allowing plants to self-sow or re-planting them yourself will ensure that you have some hollyhocks blooming each year.

Soil Care

Hollyhocks aren’t super heavy feeders, but you still need to take care of the soil, especially if you allow hollyhocks to keep re-seeding in the same bed. Adding a layer of compost each spring can help keep the soil healthy.

Hollyhocks are a fun, easy-to-grow flower great for adding lots of color and height to your garden. Following these tips can help you have success with them.

Grow a Cut flower garden

Having fresh flowers on the table can help make a home feel pleasant and inviting. Store-bought flowers can be expensive, but growing your own may not be as hard as you’d think. Gardeners can grow and create their own cut flower bouquets with surprisingly little time and space.

What Types of Flowers Should I Grow?

There are many flowers that are suitable and easy to grow as cut flowers. These include:

  • Sunflowers
  • Celosia
  • Zinnias
  • Cosmos
  • Sweet Peas
  • Snapdragons
  • Tulips
  • Yarrow
  • Poppies
  • Daffodils
  • Asters
  • Amaranth
  • Bachelor’s Buttons
  • Ageratum
  • Echinacea (coneflowers)
  • Lavender
  • Sweet William

Especially if you’re new to flower gardening, we recommend growing zinnias and cosmos as they produce tons of flowers over a long season. The more you cut and deadhead, the more they produce.

Soil Preparation

Just as you need healthy soil to produce a good vegetable crop, you need healthy soil to grow quality cut flowers. Forking your flower bed, adding compost, and testing your soil before planting can help ensure that you get a great harvest.

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Plant Early & Plant Successions

Many flowers need to be started indoors weeks before your last frost. Be sure to read the growing instructions for your chosen varieties well before the season begins and stay on top of spring planting.

You can also use the fall to do some extra-early planting. Tuck in bulbs like daffodils and tulips and sow self-seeding flowers like poppies. Visit our post, Fall-Sown Flowers for Spring Blooms, for more ideas.

Throughout the beginning and middle of the summer continue sowing, if you have space. Some quick-growing flowers like zinnias can be sown every 2-3 weeks until midsummer. For more details on how to succession plant flowers, check out our post, Succession Planting Flowers.

Keep the Weeds Down

Keeping the weeds at bay, especially while plants are getting established, is essential. Plants won’t produce as many flowers if they’re competing with the weeds for nutrients and space.

Water Consistently

Consistent watering is key to good flower production. Soaker hoses or drip irrigation are an ideal low maintenance way to keep flowers watered. They’re also more efficient!

You can also mulch around flowers once they’re up. Mulch will help block weeds and keep the soil cool and moist.

Harvest & Deadhead Regularly

It may seem counter-intuitive, but for many “cut flower” varieties, the more you harvest, the more they will grow. The same goes for deadheading. Not letting flowers go to seed will encourage them to keep producing. So even if you don’t need another bouquet, cut your flowers and give them to a friend.

Harvesting

There are a few things you should know when harvesting cut flowers. The first is that your flowers will last the longest and look the best if you harvest them in the morning after the dew has dried, but while it’s still cool.

Always use clean cutting tools. Cut stems at a 45° angle and bring flowers into the shade as soon as possible. When arranging flowers, remove all foliage that’s below the waterline.