flowers

Exit January… enter February

Did you feel it? The subtle season shift? 

Yesterday, on the 1st of February, the air felt different. The sky was a bit lighter, the greens were a bit greener. It was as if – once January was finally out the door – the world could breathe a sigh and get on with the business of spring. 

There are only very early signs: a few little snowdrops nodding on their stalks, fat shoots of daffodils poking out of the soil and leaf litter, an extra few minutes of daylight each afternoon. I even heard the sound of a woodpecker hammering on a tree in the woods – which always gives me a thrill because it’s one of the earliest spring sounds. 

These are just little things, small signs, and we are still very much in the depths of winter here in Scotland – but it’s enough to inspire hope and a sense of anticipation about the new season that’s around the corner.

Spring preparations 

While we wait out the last blasts of the winter winds and (no doubt) icy, cold days still to come I’m getting busy with preparing indoors for the growing season. That means sorting my seeds: checking which open packets still have seeds in them, assessing their likelihood of germination against the suggested expiry date, reminding myself of those plants I want to grow again, and those which I’ve lost enthusiasm for. 

One of the beautiful things about growing a garden is that you can change it up every year if you like – or keep things exactly the same. Or something in between! There are some flowers and vegetables that are on my ‘must grow’ list, including tomatoes, dahlias, sweet peas and cosmos. I grow these every year and I mix a few favourites with new varieties and colours.

Then I also look down the notes and lists in my phone or saved photos on Instagram which remind me about new plants I want to grow or new varieties to try. I think about the colours I’m most drawn to – I like to choose shades which complement each other and at the moment I’m loving soft pinks, creams, apricots but also pairing this with a dash of dramatic dark red or purple. 

For example, I love cosmos and will nearly always grow white ‘Purity’ as it’s such a fantastic, reliable plant and great in cut flower arrangements. But this year I’m very excited to try ‘Apricotta’ as I’ve admired the many Instagram photos I’ve seen other growers posting last summer! It looks like a gorgeous soft colour which will probably vary between blooms and change as the petals age, which is often the way with coloured cosmos.

Cosmos ‘Apricot Lemonade’

So, now I’ve got an idea of the seeds I already have, and I like to arrange these (and any new additions as they arrive in the post) into the months I’ll plan to sow them so that I can keep track of what to do and when. It makes it much easier when I have an opportunity to get into the greenhouse to simply glance through the collection and pick the ones I want or need to sow that month. 

January and February’s selection is always much smaller than March and April! But there’s no rush – for me, the timings are more of a guide and way to prioritise rather than a hard and fast rule. And it’s also important to keep an eye on the weather – I may hold off some of the sowings in February and March in order to give more plants a better start later in the spring as they will catch up fast in warmer, sunnier conditions.

In the meantime, I’m browsing some of my favourite seed suppliers to fill the gaps in my wish list and look out for any good bargains. 

In terms of other indoor prep, I also usually draw a plan of the raised beds in The Secret Garden and figure out what I should plant and where, with a loose idea of crop rotation. If I’m feeling really nerdy I’ll open my spreadsheets (Airtable in fact) and update the plants and seeds I’ve got in stock – I might even start a mood board of colours for my sweet peas and dahlias! 

Most of these plans will probably change and be adapted as the season goes, but it always feels good to start off with a plan – and it’s something enjoyable and constructive to do when the days are still short or the weather is, as they say round here, “blowing a hoolie” and making it difficult to get outside.

What I’m looking forward to growing in 2024 

Here are some of the flowers I can’t wait to see in flower in my garden this year: 

Cosmos ‘Double Click Cranberries’ – I resisted growing these for ages but sowed some last year and instantly fell in love with them; gorgeous deep pink coloured flowers, a good size with little frilly double petals – like a jewel in your garden.

Sweet pea ‘Juliet’ – I usually go for pinks and purples (and have plenty of these this year too!) but I was drawn to the soft cream-apricot colour of these, so I’m giving them a try.

‘Amazing Grey’ poppies – they look a bit weird in photos but when I saw these in real life at Gardeners World Live not only were they a mesmerising grey-red-purple colour, they were heaving with bees! I managed to resist buying one then and there, and ordered seeds instead to grow my own! 

Calendula ‘Sunset Buff’ – these grew in huge clumps at Hospitalfield where I’m a garden volunteer and they are the prettiest soft peach-pink. A lovely alternative to the more common bright orange varieties and they just caught my eye every time I visited. 

Dahlia ‘Café de Paris’ – related to the Insta-popular ‘Café au Lait’ dahlia, this one has a similar shape with a soft pink blush to the petals – it looks absolutely gorgeous.

Other good stuff…

📖 I can’t wait to get started on Arthur Parkinson’s latest book The Flower Yard: Planting a Paradise. I want to do more container growing this year and Arthur has the best eye for combinations of plants which also benefit pollinators and wildlife – I’m certain I’ll be inspired.

🧤 More spring prep – I’m ordering more gloves from Niwaki. These are my favourite light gloves with a nice neat fit which makes it easier to weed or do more fiddly work with them on – I dislike bulky gloves. I’m ordering two pairs this time as I lost one of my existing pair and have been bereft ever since! 

👩🏻‍🌾 I love the variety of international horticultural jobs in this list from Mr Plant Geek. It really shows the variety of roles and skills you can combine in the world of horticulture – so check it out if you are entering the industry or fancy a career change.

Finally… are you going to this? I’m tempted 🤔 The brand new RHS Urban Show seems like it will step away from the usual, more traditional ideas of gardening with its focus on urban and indoor growing and an emphasis on wellbeing. I’d be interested to see if the kind of gardens and exhibits they will have on show are realistic and achievable for all or simply a token nod to houseplants and balcony gardens… could be interesting!

Winter Sown Sweet Peas

Sweet peas were one of the first plants I grew from seed – or, now that I think about it, from seedlings. It was quite a long time ago when my children were still small, and I felt the urge to grow something in our little garden. It needed to be easy and rewarding and I remember picking up some small sweet pea plants in cardboard pots from somewhere – probably a local garden centre. 

They succeeded, and the love of growing was awakened from deep within, although at the time I had two youngsters and a job and not very much time to do anything about it. Fast forward a few years later and sweet peas are still one of the stalwarts of my garden. I sow some in late autumn/winter and usually some in the spring too, aiming to have at least two or three large frames with a variety of colours and scents, and a steady supply of flowers to pick and bring inside for the vase.

As far as I’m concerned these are fair game to sow at any point between now and spring. I sometimes even make a point of sowing on New Year’s Day – a welcome break from the festivities to mark the turning of the year and the beginning of a new growing season.

Autumn/winter sown sweet peas are generally stronger and flower earlier than spring-sown, but you do have to have a bit of space somewhere to raise them and overwinter them. This year I’m germinating mine on a windowsill in a small north-facing sunroom at the back of the house, and will then move them to the greenhouse where they can grow on, slowly and steadily, until spring when they can be planted out surprisingly early – sweet peas are hardier than they look.

Sowing

Some people soak sweet pea seeds first but I’ve never done this and my seeds usually germinate very reliably. I use a mix of general purpose peat-free compost with a couple of handfuls of horticultural grit and perlite. For pots, I either sow one seed each into rootrainer modules (like these from Sarah Raven) or three seeds into regular square 9cm pots.

The benefit of the rootrainers is that they are nice and deep, giving the roots lots of space to develop, running up and down the grooves inside each module. And once the seedlings are big enough to be planted out there’s very little root disturbance as you can just pull apart each module and plant out the whole seedling, roots and compost and all.

Although not quite as deep as rootrainers, 9cm pots also do a good job, they save a little bit of space and compost as you can sow three seeds into each one, and you can opt to pop the three seedlings from container to ground as well, no need to pull apart each plant.

Pinching out

This needs done when the seedlings have put on some good growth, which is likely to have happened by spring. When the plant has three or four pairs of leaves, either snip or squeeze off the top of the main stem, leaving one or two pairs of leaves. This means side shoots will develop, leading to bushier plants and more flowers.

Planting out

This will depend on the spring weather! For me, in Scotland, I choose an opportunity in April or May when the weather is reasonable and there’s no imminent heavy frost or cold snap. This wouldn’t necessarily kill them off, but would certainly check their growth, so ideally I’ll try to wait until I’m fairly sure the weather will be settled to let them get established. If it’s very mild it’s possible (but perhaps more risky) to plant out in March. As I said above, sweet peas are tougher than they seem and although a touch of frost may nip the youngest leaves, it shouldn’t do more harm than naturally pinching out the top growth.

Support

Sweet peas need support, and when they’re first planted out they may need tied in or at least pointed in the right direction – as they grow they’ll develop little twining tendrils which will keep them attached to the structure you provide (or to nearby plants!) So check on them regularly and tie them in with soft wool or jute twine to ensure they’re growing against the structure, otherwise the weight of the stems or a stiff wind could bend them over and damage the plants. 

I used to craft a V-shaped structure out of bamboo canes and twine – until summer 2022 when most of the twine was stolen by nesting squirrels, leading to major structural integrity issues! Last year I bought a couple of these willow obelisks from Wilko and they’re fab – they look natural and are really easy to pop up and place wherever you want them in your garden. I put them onto the surface of the raised beds where I grow most of my cut flowers, but they’d blend in really well in a mixed border too.

Varieties

When it comes to what kind of sweet peas to grow, that’s entirely up to you and there’s a plethora of colours, sizes and scents to choose from. There are different groups of sweet peas, so you can choose broadly depending on what you’re looking for:

Grandiflora – as the name suggests, have large flowers and a good scent

Spencer – bred to be frilly and brightly coloured, good for showing

Species/heirloom – these have smaller blooms and simpler colours and a really strong scent

There are also dwarf varieties – these are compact and good for containers.

NB – there’s also an everlasting sweet pea – this is a perennial variety, so it comes back year after year, but it doesn’t have any scent so if that’s important to you then make sure you go for the annual types!

Recommendations

I’ve grown a lot of different varieties – I usually mix it up year to year, going for colours that I’m drawn to, or names that are meaningful – or simply sowing whatever packet I happened to have received as a gift or special offer!

These are some of the sweet peas I’ve enjoyed most in recent years and would be happy to grow again: Jimmy Shand, Cupani, Judith Wilkinson, Cream Egg, Erewhon. I also usually grow a packet of heritage mix, which reliably provides a variety of colours and good scent.

Cosmos – out of this world!

No garden should be without cosmos and its heavenly flowers. After a bit of a slow start with these brightly-coloured blooms, I’ve become a convert, and now I sow them from seed every year to ensure I’ve got plenty of these cheery favourites to brighten up my borders.

Cosmos bipinnatus are half-hardy annuals, which means, like bedding plants, they will grow and flower within one season, and can then be composted when they’re spent in the autumn. Their large, daisy-like flowers are most often seen in shades of pink or pure white, but they can also be found in ‘hot’ red and orange – there’s even a relatively new yellow variety. They are very easy to grow and you can easily buy them as young plants – but you’ll get much more for your money if you sow them from seed any time between March and May. Simply sprinkle onto a tray of moist compost and cover lightly. They’ll benefit from bottom heat, but will also germinate fairly readily if covered with a plastic bag or clear lid and left in a greenhouse or sunny windowsill.

Once their second pair of leaves is showing (the ‘true’ leaves) they can be pricked out into bigger pots and grown on until they’re ready to plant out after the last frosts. Pinching them out (removing the growing tip) makes for bigger and bushier plants with more flowers so this is well worth doing at this point or when they’re about a foot or so tall. Once they’re in the ground and flowering it’s a good idea to deadhead them regularly as removing the spent flowers makes room for more to bloom – and bloom they will! These generous plants will flower non-stop from midsummer until the first frosts, perhaps even later. With last year’s mild autumn, it took a real dip in the temperatures to kill off my cosmos, so I was able to enjoy them well into November.

There’s quite a wide variety of cosmos to choose from, but all are reliable performers so choosing is simply a matter of taste. For a pure hit of colour you can’t go wrong with ‘Sensation’ – a mix of light and dark pinks with some white flowers and well worth growing. There’s also ‘Dazzler’ with large deep red flowers, or ‘Versailles Tetra’, which are slate-pink with a red centre surrounding the bright yellow eye of the bloom. Last year I was quite taken with ‘Daydream’, which is a bit more delicate looking – very pale pink, deepening in colour towards the centre of each petal. However my firm favourite is ‘Purity’, These are quite a tall variety, so best towards the back of a border, with large, brilliant white flowers. They look fantastic with other cottage-garden style plants or in a vase, providing light and texture with their feathery foliage and stunning white blooms.

Cosmos ‘Purity’ in a mixed border

Cosmos aren’t just for the garden – dwarf varieties are great in pots – try ‘Sonata’ or ‘Apollo’, which are more compact and will suit container planting. For something a bit different, go for ‘Xanthos’ which flowers prolifically and is the first yellow cosmos in a really pretty, soft shade. There are other more unusual varieties of cosmos which come in all shapes and sizes – ‘Cupcake’ is so-called because its fused and upturned petals look, well, like a cupcake! Or there’s ‘Sea Shells’, which has tubular petals, and ‘Double Click’, with a lovely ruffled, fully double flower, in a range of colours from cranberry through to rose.

Cosmos ‘Xanthe’ (left) with chocolate cosmos in the planter with Stipa tenuissima

Cosmos are easy to grow, flower for ages and are great for filling gaps in borders, or as a temporary fix for an empty flower bed – they can even be planted alongside vegetables, to help bring in those useful pollinators, and they’re a stalwart of the cut flower patch too. They’re great dotted around the garden or in a vast swathe of airy, feathery foliage dotted with those brilliant blooms. Cosmos are cosmic for every garden – so get growing!

Chocolate cosmos
Chocolate cosmos is another member of the cosmos family, but not exactly like the others. Why is it called chocolate cosmos? Well, partly because of its rich, dark, red/brown colouring but also because of its scent – if you get up close to the flower you’ll smell its wonderful vanilla-chocolate aroma. Also known as Cosmos astrosanguineus, this plant is perennial, and if you look after its slim tubers (by lifting or covering during the winter) then it will return year after year. It’s not as common as its bright and beautiful cousins, but it’s got a velvety, sultry charm which is hard to resist. These are most often bought as young plants, as seeds are hard to come by and can be tricky to germinate. Chocolate cosmos are much smaller than Cosmos bipinnnatus, with loose, slender stems. I plant mine in a large container with grasses to give some contrast and also to help support the flowers…after all, I want them as close to my nose as possible for that fantastic hit of chocolate!

This article was originally published in The Courier’s Beautiful Homes supplement, Spring 2019