Hi,

I am a relatively inexperienced gardener. My parents have an a very large garden which I am trying to keep on top of.

Over the last few years I have been growing Cottage Garden type plants e.g.

Lupins, nasturtiums sweet peas etc.

I found I can propagate Lupins easily from seed and this is great because I have a big garden and I hope to fill a lot of space with free plants in this way.

I have been looking on the internet trying to find seeds for perennial herbaceous flowering plants that hopefully I can propagate throughout the garden Like I am doing with my Lupins.

I want to start from seed as with the large spaces I have to fill it would not be economic any other way.

Any suggestions?

In message , Smeths
writes

Hi,

I am a relatively inexperienced gardener. My parents have an a very
large garden which I am trying to keep on top of.

Over the last few years I have been growing Cottage Garden type plants
e.g.

Lupins, nasturtiums sweet peas etc.

I found I can propagate Lupins easily from seed and this is great
because I have a big garden and I hope to fill a lot of space with free
plants in this way.

I have been looking on the internet trying to find seeds for perennial
herbaceous flowering plants that hopefully I can propagate throughout
the garden Like I am doing with my Lupins.

I want to start from seed as with the large spaces I have to fill it
would not be economic any other way.

Any suggestions?

Lychnis coronaria, Campanula persicifolia, Althaea officinalis, Papaver
orientale, ...

Chiltern Seeds have an extensive catalog. There are several other seed
merchants.


--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

As others have said, Chiltern Seeds is a good source.

Perennials that are easy from seed - Lychnis coronariia in pink or white, and the bright red "Maltese Cross" thing. Ragged Robin - Lychnis flos-cuculi, makes a very nice garden plant if your soil is on the moist side. Malva moschata, both the pink form and the white form - seeds itself around very happily, and has lovely finely divided foliage. Foxglove - biennial, so plant a few seeds two years running. Other Digitalis species also grow easily from seed.

Purple loosestrife - tall spires, available in shades of red purple. Mullein - another biennial, with felty leaves and yellow flowers.

Most wallflowers can be grown as perennials, especially if you trim them back so as not to get too straggly and provide welcome scent early in the year.

The british field geranium has big blue flowers and self seeds readily - there are a lot of garden varieties, but the wild type is garden worthy. Some of the other hardy geraniums can also be grown fairly easily from seed.

Don't forget cuttings as a means of propagation. In it's most basic form (ie the lazy way, not necessarily the most successful way) - cut off a twig in mid-late summer, just beneath where a leaf comes out. Remove all the leaves except 1-2 at the top. Stick it in a pot of soil so that it is at least 2/3 submerged. Take a dozen or so cuttings - as many as the pot will hold. Make sure the soil is good and moist, then enclose the whole thin in a plastic bag. Every month or so remove any cuttings that have rotted. By the following spring there should be roots coming out of the bottom of the pot. Fuchsias (there are hardy varieties) and pelargoniums are easy ones to start with.

On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:25:31 +0100, Sacha wrote:

hackety

There are perennial forms of sweet peas which are pretty but not
spectacular.

Right. In the next couple of days I'm taking my camera to Saffron lane in
Leicester where there is a bank of perennial sweet peas that is
absolutely purple with flower and has been flowering like the blazes for
at least 3 weeks.

Warwick

On Sat, 4 Jun 2011 21:19:52 +0100, Warwick
wrote:

On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:25:31 +0100, Sacha wrote:

hackety

There are perennial forms of sweet peas which are pretty but not
spectacular.

Right. In the next couple of days I'm taking my camera to Saffron lane in
Leicester where there is a bank of perennial sweet peas that is
absolutely purple with flower and has been flowering like the blazes for
at least 3 weeks.

Warwick

Not being funny, but let's not call them "sweet peas". They're
"everlasting peas", and can be very nice (I've got some pink-purplish
bicolours which appeared by accident from a packet of seed from
Chiltern).

The reason for my fussiness is not pedantry but consumer protection:
too many rogues, thieves, vagabonds, sons of guns, bashibazouks,
bandits, and brigands are selling so-called "sweet peas" which look
cute but are hardly sweet at all. These monsters should not have been
allowed into such a treasured gene pool, and the culprits should be
sent to an island where the only vegetation is horsetail and striped
petunias until they sincerely repent.

--
Mike.

On Sun, 05 Jun 2011 20:53:57 +0100, Mike Lyle wrote:

On Sat, 4 Jun 2011 21:19:52 +0100, Warwick
wrote:

On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:25:31 +0100, Sacha wrote:

hackety

There are perennial forms of sweet peas which are pretty but not
spectacular.

Right. In the next couple of days I'm taking my camera to Saffron lane
in Leicester where there is a bank of perennial sweet peas that is
absolutely purple with flower and has been flowering like the blazes for
at least 3 weeks.

Warwick

Not being funny, but let's not call them "sweet peas". They're
"everlasting peas", and can be very nice (I've got some pink-purplish
bicolours which appeared by accident from a packet of seed from
Chiltern).

Thread cross

They were pointed out to me by a botanist while I was doing conservation
work (weekly volunteering). Described as Lathyrus Latifolius. Sweet peas
are also in that family (Lathyrus Odorata)... Obviously so are the
vetchlings. She called them perennial sweet peas.

Google gives a very slight edge to Everlasting Pea on the hits over
Perennial Sweet pea, but it matches on various variations of both those
too.

The reason for my fussiness is not pedantry but consumer protection: too
many rogues, thieves, vagabonds, sons of guns, bashibazouks, bandits,
and brigands are selling so-called "sweet peas" which look cute but are
hardly sweet at all. These monsters should not have been allowed into
such a treasured gene pool, and the culprits should be sent to an island
where the only vegetation is horsetail and striped petunias until they
sincerely repent.

Well, they aren't scented, but you can aim them up a tree (quite a long
way)and they are beautiful. I'd not describe them as low maintenance
unless you hem them in with something, but if you have space for them I
don't see the problem. Insects seem to like them too.

I believe that the seed can be a little troublesome to germinate
(moderately difficult, not *really* difficult) and the plant can take a
while to establish.

The fact that they have multiple common names and one is confusing is
further evidence that we need to rely on the proper name.

Warwick

In message ,
Warwick writes
On Sun, 05 Jun 2011 20:53:57 +0100, Mike Lyle wrote:

On Sat, 4 Jun 2011 21:19:52 +0100, Warwick
wrote:

On Sat, 04 Jun 2011 11:25:31 +0100, Sacha wrote:

hackety

There are perennial forms of sweet peas which are pretty but not
spectacular.

Right. In the next couple of days I'm taking my camera to Saffron lane
in Leicester where there is a bank of perennial sweet peas that is
absolutely purple with flower and has been flowering like the blazes for
at least 3 weeks.

Warwick

Not being funny, but let's not call them "sweet peas". They're
"everlasting peas", and can be very nice (I've got some pink-purplish
bicolours which appeared by accident from a packet of seed from
Chiltern).

Thread cross

They were pointed out to me by a botanist while I was doing conservation
work (weekly volunteering). Described as Lathyrus Latifolius. Sweet peas
are also in that family (Lathyrus Odorata)... Obviously so are the
vetchlings. She called them perennial sweet peas.

Google gives a very slight edge to Everlasting Pea on the hits over
Perennial Sweet pea, but it matches on various variations of both those
too.

There are 5 species of "everlasting pea" that occur rarely in the wild
in the UK; one is even native to the UK. Lathyrus latifolius (the second
word shouldn't be capitalised) is (I think) the commonest.

The reason for my fussiness is not pedantry but consumer protection: too
many rogues, thieves, vagabonds, sons of guns, bashibazouks, bandits,
and brigands are selling so-called "sweet peas" which look cute but are
hardly sweet at all. These monsters should not have been allowed into
such a treasured gene pool, and the culprits should be sent to an island
where the only vegetation is horsetail and striped petunias until they
sincerely repent.

Well, they aren't scented, but you can aim them up a tree (quite a long
way)and they are beautiful. I'd not describe them as low maintenance
unless you hem them in with something, but if you have space for them I
don't see the problem. Insects seem to like them too.

I believe that the seed can be a little troublesome to germinate
(moderately difficult, not *really* difficult) and the plant can take a
while to establish.

The fact that they have multiple common names and one is confusing is
further evidence that we need to rely on the proper name.

Warwick

--
Stewart Robert Hinsley