Flower seeds FAQs
Flowers are the soul of any spectacular garden. Starting your flowers with quality seed from Dobies is a cost-effective way to fill your garden with lively colour. Sow lovely annual flowers like poppies, cornflowers and petunias for splashes of colour and plant up the herbaceous border with seedlings grown from perennial salvia seed. Sweetly scented sweet peas twine their way up supports while nasturtiums sprawl, attracting pollinators to their bright edible flowers.
What flower seeds to plant now
There’s a flower to be sown every month of the year, even January! Find out which flower seeds to start off this month with our helpful collections of flower seeds by month. Autumn is a good time to sow hardy annuals like sweet peas to get earlier flowers in spring while tender bedding geraniums appreciate an early sowing in a heated propagator in February.
How to grow flowers from seed
Grow flowers from seed using quality seed compost. Sow your flower seeds evenly onto the surface of damp compost and place them somewhere warm to germinate. Sweet pea seeds are traditionally sown into root trainers to encourage extra long roots to give these climbing annual a boost. Alternatively, sow your hardy sweet peas directly at the base of a trellis in late spring. Tender flower seeds like geraniums need a warm sustained temperature to germinate in spring, a heated propagator where the temperature can be controlled is ideal.
Half-hardy and hardy annual flower seeds, including native poppies, cornflowers and antirrhinums are best sown directly out into the garden in April and May. Make sure you turn over the soil before sowing your hardy annuals, removing any rocks and weeds before scattering the seeds evenly and lightly raking them into the soil. Give the seeds water using a fine rosette or spray setting on the hose.
Can you harvest sunflower seeds from cut flowers?
It is possible to sow seed collected from cut sunflowers, but germination from these seeds may be poor and the flowers that grow from them won’t necessarily be the same as the flower that you took the seeds from. It’s always a good idea to source your sunflower seeds from a quality seed supplier like Dobies to make sure you get reliable germination and the flower that you want.
