Sweet Williams

I raised some Sweet Williams from seed last year, put them in in the Autumn. They just about managed to hang on till spring but have not done very much since then. They look healthy and have now started to put on decent rosettes at the end of somewhat straggly stems. Shouldn't they be flowering right now? A few are but the rest don't look anywhere near it. What will happen if they don't flower now? Will they flower in the autumn or leave it till next spring - should be massive plants if they do!

 

I am not really sure Madahhlia, as I am only growing them for the first time myself - mine are now flowering, or just about to.

Sweet William are described as biennial. But the distinction between annuals, biennial and perennial is often more blurred that the books make out. For instance if you sow annuals in the autumn, they won't flower that year but will flower the next year and then die. I am growing some Echiums that come from Madeira. They are called biennial because in the heat of Madeira they reliably flower in their second year and then die. But in this country where they don't grow so fast they often don't flower till the third or even fourth year.

So I suspect that anything that doesn't flower this year will flower next year.

 

I normally grow quite a few sweet williams but last winter seems to have been disastrous for them. The beds are normally cleared immediately after the 3rd year of flowering, so around July, with one third of the beds replaced every year.

I've had around a dozen blooms from a bed planted last year, nothing from a bed planted the previous year, just loads of lost plants and didn't even bother with a couple of bed that should have been blooming for their third year - they were rotavated through & turned over to spuds.

Looking on the bright side, I've recently pricked out 3 - 4 sweet william seedlings into each cell of twenty four 24x cell trays, so lots of blooms next year! Half of them single blooms which seem to come a few weeks earlier than the ones with big double blooms.

From last year,

A few bunches of singles (picked for a charity sale):



And some doubles:

 

Lovely! They remind me of my grandmother who always had them in her garden.

 

Hi ya'll, your problem I think lies with the dry start to the year. Like most plants water is life.