Top flower jobs for February

This weekend I’m going to build a fifth raised bed in the allotment – not to grow more veg, but for cut flowers. I was inspired by Rachel de Thame who last year decided to stop growing vegetables and grow masses of flowers instead.  What a fantastic way to ensure you have blooms to decorate the house all through the spring, summer and into autumn…

Growing flowers from seed is something I’m fairly new to, so I’m getting started early to try and maximise my returns.  My sweet peas have been propagating in their plug containers (first of all on the windowsill, now in the greenhouse) since December – last year the ones I started early produced so many more flowers, and for a much longer period, than the ones I started from seed in the spring.

With the early arrival of snowdrops in the allotment this month, I thought I’d write a quick blog post with a list of floral jobs to do this month to ensure you bring some colour to the garden from as early as May:

Sow the following seeds – put on a sunny windowsill or in a heated propagator to germinate:

• Begonia

• Cosmos

• Dahlia

• Verbena

• Petunia

• Delphimium

• Dianthus

• Sweet peas (you can never have too many in my opinion)

• Helenium

• Take cuttings of the following plants to propagate under glass:

• Verbascum petra

• Papaver orientale poppy

For more information and advice on what flowers to plant when, download the gardeners world flower growing calendar here

Enjoy!