Summery things like tulips.

[civilfawlty]

Hello clever gardeners. I'm looking for flowers for the summer which pop up as vibrant and singularly as, say, a bright red tulip. I have some alliums, and delphiniums. What else is there?

(Does the question even make sense??)

Wild flower meadows HAVE to be sown and grown in a very low nutrient soil. Too much nutrient and the grasses take over. Low nutrient soil and the grasses intermingle with the wild flowers.

Also, things don't grow like that in the first year, you need a couple of years growth to establish the randomness. So start by putting aside a good patch to get started with. From then, you can scatter the flower seeds where you want them next year from the seed heads as they will all produce seeds for you.

What is the state of the soil/garden that you are starting this in? Is it lawn, or already cultivated beds?

What you would do best at the moment is to sow some wildflower seeds in pinches into plugs or modules, with a light scattering of soil on top. As these grow and fill the plugs or modules with their roots, plant them in 4 inch block spacings in your prepared soil. The prepared soil needs to have been dug over, a fair amount of grit or sharp sand added, and redug and then left for around 3 weeks [whilst your flowers are germinating] and then reweeded without digging over. It is called a 'stale seed bed' technique and it allows the weed seeds that are in the soil to germinate and once removed, then you put your new seedlings in. They really need to be around 4-6 inches tall when they go in. Water them in and leave them to it.

If you are in or near Nottingham, we have wild flower plugs, big ones with around 10 seedlings per plug, that will be up for sale in the next fortnight.

Good question: I think it depends on where online, and which garden centre. These days, I am quite disillusioned with garden centres - so many of them sell the same plants, often at great cost. However, I am also hacked off with those large online places that sell those tiny perennial plug plants about 40 for £19.99... when they know full well that it will be very difficult for those who receive them battered through the post to keep them alive!

I think your best bet is an independent nursery or a community group, like Doreens. You can often get great and unusual plants at these for reasonable prices. Online, I am also a big fan of Long Acre Plants, the Secret Gardening Club and some of the big ebay sellers, who really grow terrific stuff. (Just check out the reviews- if there are 100,000 customers at 99% positive, they're doing something right!) Look out for Hardy Plant Society sales near you - these are bargainous and brilliant.

For all of the above, working out what you want and what will grow in your conditions rather than impulse buying something that 'just looks nice' is often the difference between an ex-plant and an exquisite one!