"0tterbot" wrote in message
...
hello,

i hope this isn't the dumbest question on earth.

i have a number of annual flower seeds which can be planted "autumn or
spring". my question is: if you plant them in autumn, do they grow &
flower in winter, or do they merely grow more slowly & then flower earlier
in spring, or do they sit there & wait until early spring before they do
anything?

Ummmm. Dunno depends on what the flowers are I guess. I've just been
through my marg container of flower seed packets and only found one lot of
seeds (Aquilega) which says that. In the case of them, I know they will
sprout and then stay tiny till spring when they'll take off.

a related question: i am hoping some of my flowers will self-seed for next
spring, but i have no idea if they generally will or won't in a cool
(frosty) climate: nasturtium, paper daisies, alyssum (which afaik never
actually die off ever ever ever and are the vampires of the flower world,
but anyway... will they seed & spread?) and poppies. in particular the
poppies, which are just beautiful (flanders fields poppies)!! i've noticed
that things such as love-in-a-mist, larkspur, etc will just come up again
in spring no matter what you do (except if you say "aha! a weed!!" and
then pull them out before the penny drops, like i do ;-), is this the
usual for annual flowers - that they'll just come back again next year if
you've let them seed...?

Again depends. Lots will, some won't and some seasons won't suit some so
they won't do well in that year but may romp away in others. I tend to be a
very relaxed gardener and like to see flower heads right through to the end
of their lives so once the seed heads come I then wander round the garden
strewing seeds as I go. If I forget, or don't get round to putting on the
mulch in spring, then I always get some flowers of some sort coming up in
all sorts of odd spots round the garden. And I must admit that it these
freely strewn seeds that pop up where it suits them that always look better
than my attempts to be a 'garden designer' - they know best.

most likely i will have spread more mulch by spring - would
this prevent germination

Yep.

& i should go easy on the mulch where my flowers
are? (or do the seeds stay near the surface as teh mulch breaks down if
it's thin enough?).

Yep.

lastly while i'm on the subject (sorry!!) i have some dark purple pansies
which are about 18 months old (they were potted, but are now in the
garden) & have not yet died nor ever stopped flowering. is this normal for
pansies? will i have them forever? (are they just re-sowing themselves?!)

They may but then again they may not and they may also revert to some other
looking pansy as well. The more you want them to reseed the less likely
they are to do so. Keep nipping off the spent flowers as that will keep
them going for a long time

thanks in advance - sorry this is a bit long. in short, anything you want
to tell me about annual flowers, go for it g. ta.

Another book for you "Let the Garden Go" Cheryl Maddox - great for the
country, time short gardener.