Sowing Seeds

Having gardened very moderately for a few years now I have come to the conclusion that I would like our garden to be a haven, a place to step into and feel surrounded by a profusion of flowers. We have tried vegetables, and they are fun (when they're not decimated by slugs), but nothing gives me as much joy as lots of dreamy scented flowers.

 Photo: sarahraven.com

When we bought our house 18 months ago the garden wasn't exactly in a dreadful state but there certainly was nothing lovely about it either. The grenery in the estate agent's brochure was simply a thick carpet of weeds which had been given a buzz-cut in preparation for the viewings of the house. As a long-term renter I had never really appreciated the effort it takes to build up flower beds. I thought I could transplant my potted flowers and 2-3 flowering shrubs and add a few plants here and there to fill in the gaps. But although our garden is not big it just seems to swallow up plants - I had no idea I'd need quite so many. And believe me, I just kept on ordering plants and adding them in throughout last summer, yet the garden still didn't look as lush as I wanted it to. So this year I've decided to make a big effort with annuals, which I admit I rather ignored last year in the perhaps misguided belief that they are a bit of a waste of time (my thinking was that perennials go in once, whereas annuals have to be planted every year). Time to rethink my thinking...
To give myself a good start I went on a 'cuttings garden' course with Sarah Raven at Perch Hill Farm yesterday. And I am so glad I did - it's too easy to sit in my own bubble and noodle on what little I know - attending a course like Sarah's is so informative and inspiring. I now have a much better idea of which flowers to sow in order to get more height and volume in our flower beds. Height and volume, it sounds like what ask the hairdresser for... but it's true, I want tall flowers to screen the obligatory 6-foot fencing around our garden and mid-height flowers to add volume. Thanks to Sarah I know more about which flowers to plant together, and most importantly: how to keep up a succession of flowering throughout the year. It's about planning, as simple as that.

Photo: sarahraven.com

I already have a number of flowers germinating cautiously (some actually rather vigourously) in various trays in a cool and light bedroom at the top of the house, and I've brought quite a few more seed packets back with me from Perch Hill. Poppies, for example. I used to love their crinkly silk-tissue look when I was a child, but here in Surrey they grow like weeds, and so I had rather gone off them. But now I'll be sowing the flamboyant, pink Papaver Paeoniflorum 'Venus'.

 

Photo: sarahraven.com

 I think it will work with both the pale pinks & whites in our front garden and also the purples in our back garden - I like the idea of weaving the two gardens and colour schemes together with a few of the same plants, a bit like a watercolour painting where the colours bleed into each other. Another rediscovery is cornflower, which I had become a bit bored with but which I saw which fresh eyes as Sarah showed us her slides. I'm planning to add the lovely dark plummy red Centaurea Cyanus 'Black Ball' dotted through a pale pink flowerbed in the front garden. They are apparently very easy to grow and quick to flower - irresistible!

 Photo: bbc.co.uk

 I went a bit crazy in the seed racks in the Perch Hill Farm shop, so I will be a very busy bee indeed for the next few weeks. I can't wait.