Master My Garden Podcast
Master My Garden Podcast
EP240- Perennial Seeds To Sow This Autumn To Create A Perennial Border Next Summer
What if you could transform your garden into a breathtaking oasis from early spring to late autumn while saving money? This episode of Master My Garden promises to unravel the secrets of autumn perennial sowing, revealing how you can achieve stronger plant growth, longer flowering periods, and significant cost savings. We’ll break down the differences between annuals, biennials, and perennials, and explain why autumn is the perfect time for sowing those hardy perennials. You'll hear Stephen Daly’s inspiring success story with lupins, rudbeckia, and blue sea holly, illustrating the pride and financial benefits of growing your own garden beauties.
We’ll also guide you through a rich selection of perennial plants and grasses that are ideal for autumn sowing. From the vibrant Achillea 'Cerise Queen' and 'Cloth Of Gold' to the charming Hollyhocks and the striking Agastache 'Astello Indigo,' we highlight plants that are not only easy to cultivate but also visually stunning. Learn why late-flowering Rudbeckia is adored by goldfinches and how Verbena bonariensis can add tall, purple elegance to your borders. Each plant we discuss has been chosen for its ease of propagation and ability to enhance your garden aesthetics.
Experience the joy and satisfaction of growing plants from seeds as we offer practical tips on sowing techniques, timing, and care. From Verbascum Snowy Spire, which attracts a multitude of bees, to the humble Foxglove, we emphasise the rewarding journey from seed to full bloom. This episode is packed with encouragement and guidance for gardeners of all levels, ensuring that the process is approachable and deeply fulfilling. Join us and feel inspired to take the DIY approach to gardening, creating a vibrant, cost-effective haven right in your backyard. Happy gardening!
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
How's it going everybody, and welcome to episode 240 of Master my Garden podcast. Now, this week's episode is a sowing guide, but we're moving away from the vegetable garden for now and we're having a look at the perennials and flower seeds that we can be sown in the autumn time. And the autumn time is a really underrated time to, I suppose, start creating plants for yourself, and there's so much that we can be doing at this time of the year. And when you look at you know the best nurseries. You know if you take last week's guest, gert from Catterhurley, they would do a lot of sowing and cuttings and so on in the autumn time to create plants for the following year. It this time of the year, all perennial plants, and you know it really is the best time of the year to sow your perennials. So I'll cover a couple of biennials on it as well, and just, I suppose, before we move off that. So annuals are something that you sow. It will germinate flower all within the one year and that's an annual flower and typically those are sowed in the springtime. Some of the hardier ones you might sow in the autumn time. Then you have biennials, and biennials are things like foxgloves and proboscans and so on, and they're sowed in the autumn time, so that's year one, and then they'll germinate, grow slightly, and then you sort of pot them on into a bigger pot and will flower in year two and they're biennial, and so that's a two year cycle and then they die off. Now, the likes of the foxglove, for example, they will, they will sort of set their own seed again and they'll sort of regenerate themselves that way, but they're a shorter life cycle of a plant. And then you're on to perennials, and the perennials are something that will come back again and again and again.
Speaker 1:And perennials add huge color, huge value, because they flower over a long period of time and with the correct combinations, you can have flowering plants, flowering perennials, in your garden from probably march, april right through to october, november, and obviously there's a few winter ones as well. But you know, typically that's your period of time and it's a huge. It's a huge period of time and some of them will, will flower and remain flowering for a long, long period of. Others come in sort of they'll come with a huge pop of color, maybe for a month or whatever you know, and with using combinations of them, you're going to have flower over a long period of time and high impact over a long period of time, and the reason we're talking about them now is that this is the best time of the year the autumn time is the best time of the year to sow them. So you get the germination now over the next month or six weeks. Then you'll move them on to a bigger pot, either later this, later in the autumn or early in the spring. They'll grow strongly through the spring and then they'll be ready to flower next summer. And I suppose there's a few things with that, obviously. Obviously, from a cost perspective, if you go out to buy any perennial now, you're looking at anything from 8 euros up to 15 euros, depending on the size and the variety and whatever else. But you can get a packet of seed of that for 3 or 4 euros and you can, I suppose, suppose, create many plans from that. And you know it just gives you the ability to fill a border essentially with a lot less, a lot less cost, and it has other benefits as well.
Speaker 1:So I mentioned a few weeks ago on the podcast that I was going to be covering this episode and I got a message last week from Stephen Daly. So Stephen is a long time listener to the podcast and Stephen says, hi, john, looking forward to the perennial sowing guide coming up always a great reminder. I have masses of lupins, rebeccia and blue sea holly, which are now extremely well established after two years of growing, two years of growth since sowing, and I've never had lupins like them, huge, long lasting, and I believe it's because they were conceived and reared in my silent environment. Also, I absolutely saved a fortune doing this. Thanks a million, and keep up the good work. And that sort of encapsulates it in a nutshell. So it is all of that You're growing a plant that you're going to sow, you're going to rear yourself, pot on move and ultimately grow in your own garden, and it really does create strong, vigorous, healthy plants. There's also, as you can hear from Stephen's message, there's a level of pride that comes with that, but it really is. It's cost-saving, it's a way of pride that comes with that, but it's, you know, really is it's cost saving, it's a way of getting high color into your garden, it's a way of experimenting. So it's a great time of the year, as I say, a lot of people at this time of year to kind of forget about their garden. But you know to be gardening in the way that you know that we we talk about on the podcast. It's incorporating things like this autumn sowing. It's a huge advantage to you in terms of creating, you know, creating the garden that that you could be proud of and we've covered this episode before talked about.
Speaker 1:You know I think last year it was 10 perennials. Some of them would probably be on the list again, but essentially any perennial plant you know pretty much can be sown at this time of the year and the sowing method is really, really simple. You're talking about a seed tray with a seed sowing growing media within it. You typically sprinkle the seeds on the top of it and lightly cover either with a light layer of compost, vermiculite or even sometimes just a light coating of horticultural grit, and that can be kept in your polytunnel. You know, obviously, watered after sowing, keep it in your polytunnel, wait for a few weeks. You'll start to see germination.
Speaker 1:Now germination on perennials, you know you look at the various different ones that that you sow and germination can be very different from one to the other. So just have a look at. You know, if you decide you're going to grow five or ten different ones have a look at. You know what is the typical germination. So sometimes with, with perennials, you know, for example, lupins you'll sow them.
Speaker 1:You'll see germination very quickly, within kind of two weeks, three weeks at this time of the year, you'll see quite even germination and typically they'll germinate. You know pretty much all at the same time. Then you look look at something like sea holly, and sea holly is a different one and that's one that steven said he grew and grew very well. That's slightly different and that needs a period of cold. So that could be. It'll take longer to germinate them and you can also, you know, sew them, put them into a fridge. To put the, the sewed seed tray into a fridge, give them that period of cold that they're looking for, then take them out and then you're sort of artificially creating that natural sowing that they want. Otherwise you can just put them outside and then when the period of cold comes, whether that's in November or December, then afterwards you'll get your germination.
Speaker 1:The point I'm making is that germination on these type of seeds is very, very different to, say, sowing annual seeds in the springtime, which tend to be pretty much uniform, quite quick, and you know, once the temperatures are high enough, they'll just grow on. But at this time of the year and with sowing perennials, it can be a bit sporadic. So just have a look at what you've sown so that you don't, I suppose, think that you've failed. So you might have five seed trays with different seeds in each one, and potentially two or three of them could be germinated and growing well, and you see nothing happening on the other two and you think that you've failed there. And it may not be the case. It may just be that they're waiting for a period of cold, or that they're slower germinators, or that they're sporadic germinators, in that when you sow 20 seeds on a seed tray, two will germinate this week, five next week, six the week after, and it can be like that. So just they're not all exactly the same, but just know that this time of the year is a really good time to be sown any, any perennial plant, and we won't mention varieties today but it's also a great time of the year to sow grasses.
Speaker 1:And you know, again, a really good way of creating a lot of plants from a packet of seed, and that gives you the ability then to, you know, create borders within a border to, I suppose, plant blocks of certain things that are going to look well at certain stages, and you can do so much at this time of the year. Space typically in your polytunnel is not at a premium at this time of the year, you know. It's not like the spring where you have a lot of different types of seedlings and cuttings and whatever else going on, so you typically have a little bit more space at this time of the year. So it's a brilliant time to to, I suppose you know, as I say, generate plants for the sake of a few packets of seed and a little bit of time. The only thing you need to do after sowing is obviously just keep an eye on them, make sure that they don't dry out and, yeah, it's a super good time for growing all these A couple of things to you know to highlight is that you don't have to have a polytunnel.
Speaker 1:A lot of the time these can be, you know, know, sold and put in a sheltered place outside so that could be somebody somewhere where they're just not being hit by direct, you know, directly getting hit with heavy showers. So a sheltered spot, so along the side of a wall, just make sure that it's getting some sunlight all the time but that it's not being fully exposed to the elements. Cold frames are extremely good for germinating perennials and in fact a lot of the nurseries would use cold frame type situations and they they're just enclosed, you know, an enclosed cold frame. Sometimes they will have, you know, a glass or a perspex or a plastic top on them, other times they might just have a net top, and that net or shelter net top is essentially designed to do exactly what I said there. It's to allow them to be outside to experience the natural temperatures outside, but without being exposed massively to, say, heavy, heavy showers or, later on in the time, sleet or snow or things like that. So it just breaks it a little bit and softens it on it a little bit. So there's loads of ways to do it. You don't have to have a greenhouse.
Speaker 1:Somebody asked me last week would I do a grow along? And I may well do that, because I will actually be selling quite a lot of these myself. And when it comes to social media, as many of you know, I plan and like to do a lot more, but I just find that I run out of time because I'm heavily involved in a couple of GA teams at the moment my daughter's team and another club team and between trying to keep the vegetable garden going and all the other bits and pieces. I find it hard to get onto social media much to to do these. But somebody asked what they do a grow along and I think it would be a good idea and something that could be easily done when I start sewing myself in the coming weeks. So keep an eye there and I'll let you know if I, if I, am doing that kind of a grow along I'm going to talk about.
Speaker 1:You know some of the ones that you can sew. There is a huge list, as I say, pretty much anything that's you know, a perennial plant or a grass can be sold at this time of the year. If you're, if you're unsure or there's something that you're after, then you know, have a look and and look for the seeds, check the back of the packet or check the where you're buying them. If you're buying them online, they'll be able to tell you is it for spring sewing, is it for autumn sewing? But you'll find, when it comes to perennials and grasses, a huge amount of them can be sowed at this time of year, and the ones that I'm going to be sowing and I've again I've you know when I've covered this episode previously. Some of them have come up before, some of them I've grown before and you know some of them will be repeated, but that's not a bad thing. It's just, as I say, a reminder. A little bit like the vegetable ones that we do each month, it's a reminder of what we can be doing at this time of year.
Speaker 1:So the ones that I'll be sowing, um achillea, it's a brilliant plant, really superb plant, the variety that I'm sowing. Well, I'm actually going to sow two, but I have the seeds of one already. The the one I have is Cerise Queen. So that's a really vibrant kind of pinky, purpley color, really vibrant, really easy to grow, multiplies so that after it, you know, after it germinates, it will multiply quite quickly. Then that plant can be split and it can be easily divided and moved to other parts of the garden. But a really easy one to grow, grows equally well inside or out. It could be sowed in a seed tray here and, yeah, as I said, brilliant, brilliant one to to grow. It's a brilliant one to repeat plant as well. So if you're running along a border to, to plant it along, you know, say not your first layer along a pathway, but the second layer back, because they grow to about, roughly speaking, 60, 70 centimeters or thereabouts. But planted, you know, in a long block along a long pathway, they look really good.
Speaker 1:The other one that I'm looking to get seed of is clotted gold. That's a beautiful yellow one. I haven't sown it from seed before, but I will this autumn because I have a couple of spots that I want to put it in. So Achille is a really great one. Another one that I'll be sowing a little bit of is Hollyhock, and again, they would have been on this previously. Hocks, they kind of suit the, the cottage style planting. They're, you know, really, I suppose, a big blousey type flower and yeah, they look like that kind of cottage look and yeah, I'll be sowing some of those. The other one that I'll be sowing is agastache, and the variety is astello, astello indigo, and again the name suggests that it's a kind of an indigo, deep purple kind of color. Really nice flowers have sowed it before, but again, I'm sowing now for, you know, for a new border. The next one is a really easy one to sow and probably one of the easiest and one of the ones you'll have more success with is jean, and there's, you know, there's loads of varieties. The variety I'm sowing I think is called Mrs Bradshaw, I think from memory, but there's loads of other ones. There's totally tangerine, but totally tangerine is a really nice one. It's hard to get from plants you tend not to find it too often geum really really easy one to grow. Next one I'll be sowing again for along a pathway is napeta. So that's your cat mint and you'll be looking I'll be looking to repeat that along a pathway to create a look of, you know, a big block of flower along a pathway and yeah, that's that's one I'll be this month.
Speaker 1:Lupins, as Stephen said, they do really really well. I'll be sewing some of those. I uh did a, you know, a sewing last year of lupins. They were a packet of seed that was damaged, that was out of date and I think they were like 50 cent in a in a garden center and just for pig iron. I, you know, I sewed them and it was a spring sewing that I did and just had a look to see what you know what actually came out of it and from that damaged, out of date packet of seed, I created 32 or 34 lupins, all of them germinated, all of them potted on, all of them became plants. So you can see how easy it was. Now it was a spring sowing, but it doesn't really matter, it could be an autumn sowing either.
Speaker 1:The other one I'll be sowing again is rudbeckia, a great plant for this time of the year, in flower at the moment, absolutely adored by goldfinches. The seed heads. After they've gone over the seed heads are adored by goldfinches and then, at the end of the, you know, when they've all the seed heads eaten off, you just cut off the, the growth and they'll come back again next year. But they're late flowering. Uh, goldstrom is probably the most popular variety. It's not the one I'm sowing, I forget the variety I have, but they're just going to give you that late, that late flowering that I was talking about. So september, yeah, august, september, october, they're going to be flowering. And, yeah, great, great plant for this time of year.
Speaker 1:Next one is Verbena buriensis. So that's the big, tall flowering Verbena with a purple flower on it, on long stalks, kind of unusual type stems, the kind of triangular type stems, and they'll be. They're adored by butterflies particularly, but pollinators generally like them, but butterflies particularly flock to them and they're tall and slender, so they give you that kind of height in a perennial border, really easy to grow. They'll set their own seed as well, so they are perennial, but as the seed falls you'll see them sort of popping up here and there. If they pop up where you don't want them, they're very easy to move and put where you do want them. So a great, a great and very, very easy one to sow this time of the year. Then the other one that I'm going to be sowing, as I mentioned, some are biennial and foxgloves, so I'm going to be sowing quite a few foxgloves. I have a new bed around what was or what is the doghouse, very shaded on sort of most of the day, and I'll be sewing quite a few foxgloves into that and you know it'll just mean that they'll be nice, they'll do well there, they'll be nice color there and it takes the look off the back of that shed.
Speaker 1:The other one that I'll be sowing is one that is gone, very popular in the last couple of years. The last time I sowed it was two or three years ago for baskin snowy spire, and it's a biennial as well. It's a beautiful plant and what's really interesting about it is if you can sow a block of them together, you know, or plant out a block of them together after you've created these plants. The amount of bees that will land on those, will feed off those, is phenomenal. It's probably the one plant that it's like as if the bees are intoxicated when they're around it. It's really. I put up a video a couple of years ago of three or four plants together, three or four flower stalks together, and the bees were just phenomenal a huge amount of them, and they were just really going crazy on it. They were just so, so happy and the buzz of them was unbelievable. And yeah, that's one that has become really popular in the last few years, particularly so it's for Baskin Snowyspire.
Speaker 1:Again, it's a biennial, doesn't really set seed the way the Foxglove will, but so it's one that you'll kind of sow on a regular basis if you want to keep it in your garden, but a really great one to sow at this time of the year. And that's kind of 10 plants, that's kind of 10. That's kind of 10 plants. So achillea, hollyhock, agastache, jean napita, lupin, rudbeckia, forbena burriensis, foxglove and verbascan snowy spire.
Speaker 1:But, as I mentioned, there's so many more you can be doing. You can do, you know, penstemons you can do. Uh, dierma, the angels fishing rods. They're very, very slow, very, very slow to germinate, very slow to grow, and certainly one for patient gardeners, but they're a brilliant plant if you can get them. You can sow sweet peas at this time of the year, or sorry, october, november slightly later, but that will give you a great start for next year. Lavender Lavender, you know you can sow the true English lavender that would be hardy here in Ireland, that can be sowed this time of the year.
Speaker 1:Papyver, which is the perennial poppy, echinaceas, sea hollies, you know, as Stephen mentioned he grew really good ones of those and then some rock plants like echinacea or like obrisha and so on, and you know all the arabus and things like that. They can all be sowed at this time dear and they'll do really well and be flowering next year. And echinacea is another one, another perennial, so many varieties there and all of those can be sowed at this time dear. So yeah, loads, loads that you can be sowing in terms of, you know, doing a, a grow along, I think you know probably makes sense. I'm going to be sowing them. We'll just maybe pick five or six different seeds, do a video on, you know, show how we can do, how we can sow them, wait for a couple of weeks, have a look back and see what's germinating and then, hopefully, next summer, when everybody has them planted out in their, in their borders, we'll, you know, be able to show. This is what we saw last october, september, october, and here we are now in july, august, and we have all these flowers created from a single packet of seed and, yeah, it's a it's a good idea. So hopefully, if I can get my things together, I'll do that in the coming weeks. But it is good. People love these soaring guides because it gives them something to think about for the month ahead, for the six weeks ahead, and kind of keeps things in, I suppose, fresh in your mind and reminds you of what you can do.
Speaker 1:At this time of year, as Stephen said, you can have huge success and definitely, plants that you sow yourself, raise yourself, care for yourself, they tend to perform better in your garden anyway, there's no question about that, you know, and there is that sense of pride that comes with it, you know, if you have a border that's in full flower next July, august, and you know a lot of the plants within that have been sowed from seeds by yourself. There's a great sense of achievement. And at that stage you're gardening. Sometimes, when you're, you know, buying your plants, you know all your plants in full flower and popping them into a garden, that's kind of staging, that's kind of decorating. But when you're sowing the seed, potting on germinating, tending to nurturing plants, that's gardening as far. But when you're sowing the seed, potting on germinating, tending to nurturing plants, that's gardening as far as you know, as far as I'm concerned. So I think, I think there's huge, huge benefit to there. The the big thing with it is that you know when it.
Speaker 1:When it comes to sowing seed, the vegetable seeds and so on, I always mention that seeds want to grow. You know so it's. People can find it daunting, but there's absolutely no reason to be afraid of of sowing seeds. That's their, that's their purpose. Their purpose is to grow and you just create the environment or the conditions that will allow them to grow. And it's really, really simple.
Speaker 1:Most of the good seed suppliers will give you the instructions, will give you the, the timings, and then it's just up to you to ensure that they, you know, get a little bit of what they need all the time. So a little bit of water, right conditions typically this time of year will happen naturally. So, as I said, some of them like periods of cold. That's going to happen naturally. Typically you can, as I said, do things like putting them into a fridge if you want to. You know, help that process. But really and truly, at this time of the year, there's very little you can do wrong once you get them into the ground and get them sown, or get them into a seed tray and get them sown. So, yeah, we'll do that in the coming weeks. We'll do a kind of a grow along and then we'll create enough plants to create a border for for next summer and then we'll show the results of that coming next summer. So I think that's kind of a good thing to do and well done.
Speaker 1:To steven on his success with his plants, you know, going back two years ago, he said so you can see, it's very, very easy. You don't need to be an expert gardener. It really is simple to do. So, yeah, keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks on social media and we'll definitely do something there in terms of a grow along and hopefully that'll give you. You know you have lots of time now.
Speaker 1:So this is, you know, heading towards the end of august, but we won't really be sowing these for another couple of weeks. So you can start, you know, if there's five, six, 10 different types of perennials that you'd like to grow for your garden, start having a look now. Gather up your seeds, make sure you have something to sow them into, like a seed tray or, you know, diy version of a seed tray, whatever it is that you're going to use. Gather up those and then we'll come along in a few weeks time and we'll actually show how to sow and hopefully then we'll see the results. We'll look at when we should be potting on or moving on, growing them on into a bigger pot, planting out next spring and then hopefully a full border packed with color next year where to get your seeds. There's, you know, there's any amount of places. So a lot of the garden centers now will have switched their, their seed ranges to autumn sowing and within that you'll find a lot of perennials. You know, especially the the more specialist garden centers will will all be stocking perennials.
Speaker 1:If you're unsure, check the back of the packets or ask some other horticulturists can this be sowed at this time of the year? Online, there's loads of suppliers. You have Seedaholic, you have Seeds Ireland. You know there's loads of online suppliers of quality perennial seed and, as I say, at this time of the year, that's when a lot of nurseries are doing their sewing to create these plants that will be ready for sale. We're ready to be planted out next year.
Speaker 1:So why not have a go at it yourself over the coming weeks and see what we can create? So we'll start that in the next couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted. Um, I'll need to carve out a little bit of time somewhere to do that, but absolutely happy to do that. Delighted to hear you know people's results that have previously sowed. It's, you know, really, really heartening to hear that and the fact that they're able to see for themselves that by growing these seeds, these plants from seed, they're creating better plants, stronger plants for their own garden and, as I said, that's what gardening is all about. So that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time, happy gardening, thank you.