Early Summer Flower Kit - Instructions

Please note: if you have the May Flower Kit, please still watch the videos below as they are relevant to the five flowers you will be sowing this month!

Here's a reminder of what is what's in your Quick Start Flower Kit:

Each pack is labelled with it's plant type, but here they are listed under headings for easy reference.

You may well have more seeds than you need. If that's the case, keep them with the bags securely folded over, inside the brown envelopes in a cool dark place. The hardy annuals can be sown again in September to overwinter and become strong early spring flowers and you can probably use your leftovers next year too.

And make do with what you have. If you have no compost, only soil - use that. If you have no seed trays, use toilet rolls! If you have no outside beds, use containers - get creative - this is certainly a time that calls for getting inventive and using what you already have in new ways :)

The one thing annual flowers need is sunshine! So plant in the sunniest spot you have available to you.

Hardy Annuals

These can handle frost and given the time of year we are at, you can direct sow most of these into the ground. Here is the order I planted my bed in the video below (smallest first) - trying to make sure that the tallest plants go at the back of the bed (which for me, is the right hand end of my bed.)

Gypsophila Elegans Rosea

Gypsophila Elegans Covent Garden White

(Left a space free for Cerinthe)

(Left a space free for Zinnias)

Orlaya

Cornflower Black Ball

Cornflower Snowman

Centaurea (Perennial but included in the sowing in the video)

Euphorbia marginata Snow Top

Ammi Visnaga White 

(Left space for Cosmos)

Scabiosa atropurpurea White

Ammi Majus Graceland

Here is the plant spacing guide - make sure to grow the tallest at the back of your beds so they don't shade out smaller flowers.

Half-Hardy Annuals

These we are going to start off inside until all danger of frost has passed.

Click here to see when that date is for your area (for example, mine is 10 May).

https://www.plantmaps.com/interactive-united-kingdom-last-frost-date-map.php

Please note - if your last frost date has passed, feel free to sow them directly outside as on the video above.

Cosmos Candystripe

Cosmos Sensation Mixed

Zinnia Benary's Giant Lilac

Zinnia Benary's Giant Mixed

Zinnia Benary's Giant Salmon Rose

Zinnia Queen Red Lime

Watch this video for instructions if you want to grow along with me:

Biennials

You can leave all of these for now - they are biennials which means we're going to sow them in June, plant them out in September and they will be our early spring flowers in 2021.

Antirrhinum Potomac Appleblossom

Antirrhinum Potomac Ivory

Sweet William Amazon Neon Purple

Perennial

Centaurea moschata Mixed  - we are direct sowing this one along with the hardy annuals.

I sowed my zinnias and cosmos on 29th April and sowed my hardy annuals and cerinthe on 2nd May so I'll keep you posted with how mine are growing so you can see what to expect.