huge seedling success

hi all I'm a new guy to this forum, also to gardening. I have not long bought a new house with a really nice garden, it was abit boring at 1st as when you by a new property you get nothing but some slabs and abit of grass. so I decided rather than spend a fortune on plants I was going to grow them myself....I have always wanted to get into gardening but never had the time until I purchased my 1st house (this current one). I grew some salvias last year from seeds, pansys, sunflowers, strawberrys and pumpkings. which were all a great success! the sunflowers grew just over 2.3 meters with huge heads, the salvias grew with awesome red bell flowers on them, and the pumpkings grew to a nice size, until my dog ate the plant!!!

I have grown the salvias again this year and they have once again done me proud, along with orange, pink and White lillys. I have also only just sown the following plants;
lavatera, natsturtium, gazania, poached egg plant (had to buy these just for the name!), malope and sweet peas. I started them a week ago and they are a quarter of an inch high! I'm amazed how quick they have grown. I have bought a medium pop up green house and they seem to grow really well, as my garden gets the sun all day.

my main task is to keep my damn dogs off the flowers this year lol,
any tips on what to grow now and the up coming months be much appreciated :D

 

Hi Dubman and welcome. I too love growing plants from seed. Its very rewarding.

As you probably know plants fall into 2 main categories. Annuals, which must be grown anew every year, and most of your plants seem to fall in that category. They are great fun, but there is a quiet period before they reach flowering size.

And there are Perennials, that come back every year. These are much less work, and you get the benefit of good bushy foliage early in the year, as well as some that flower much earlier than any annual.

I would have a go at some perennials, assuming your garden is big enough to support a range of plants. Good easy simple ones are Centranthus ruber (Red Valerian), Helenium, Nepeta faassenii (Cat mint), Sedum spectabile (Ice plant), Astrantia, Echinacea purpurea (Purple coneflower), Astilbe and Hemerocallis (Day Lilly) to name just a few. These are all really good garden plants that flower for a long period of time, and will reliably come back next year.

It is probably not worth growing any more annuals for this year as they are unlikely to have time to flower. But you could certainly grow some perennials. They won't flower this year, but they will next year.

By the way, later in the year - do collect the seed from your plants. Its much cheaper than buying them all again next year. And seed from many plants have a shelf life of several years.

 

thankyou very much Peter, great advise I will look them up at once. thank you again :D