Hardy flowering plants to brighten up my front garden

[Riya011]

Hi all,
I’m an absolute gardening beginner. My front garden looks quite dull. My house is east facing, so we get lots of morning sun. Last year I bought some lavender and also got 2 pots (on either side of the door) with crysanthemums. Half of the lavender saplings died. 2 survived :( Crysanthemums are nearly dead. I trimmed, fertilised and watered them - they still are nearly dead.

Given my sad entry into gardening, please can someone help me feel better this year?

I’m looking for :

1. some bloody hardy plants that can go in the pots on either sides of the door (outside, but shaded). Flowering ones are a bonus.

1. This year I want a flowering riot in my front garden. I’ve zeroed on Marigold. But I live in a tight house without a conservatory. Can I grow saplings from seed in the garage (unheated)?

1. Any other plants that grow quickly from seed to bloom THIS season and are reasonably hardy?

1. My soil is perhaps quite old and tired too. Would putting a layer of compost make it fertile?

Many thanks :)

Nasturtiums will flower this season (though I wouldn't plant them yet) and give you loads of flowers (that you can eat, along with the leaves) and thrive in poor soil.

Pots you need to be more careful with - the lavender could well grow back in the spring (along with the chrysanthemums--both die back in winter) but generally, if you want pots that have something staying in them long-term you need to find a good fertiliser
(Osmocote for example) and also be prepared to empty out and redo compost every so often, plus unballing roots etc

Trees are quite a good bet - slow growing conifers - or how about daphne odorata (evergreen, scented, in flower nowish)? Or wintersweet?

If your garage is unheated, it's too early for sewing seeds - plus you need somewhere much lighter once they germinate, otherwise they get leggy and prone to damping off as well.

Iirc you can sew marigolds direct later in the year.

Poppies? You can get bits of root from around now in the shops - more effective than seed. And how about summer flowering bulbs too?

Thanks @utterlydesperate

Where is the best place to get seeds cheaply? I can’t afford to buy plants this year (—or dh will kill me after all the money I blew up on plants last year and most of them died—)

You can try the poundshop/ Home Bargains (might be a bit early though) but for germination rates, you really can't beat a garden centre. That said, I've had some good bulbs over the years from various poundstretcher /poundshop type places.

Also take a look at the Secret Garden - I followed an ad on here and it looks pretty good: they seem to sell overstocks, so choice is limited, of course, and I don't know what their postage costs but they've got some decent sized cottage garden-type plants that are perennials (will grow again next year) - things like lupins, delphiniums etc - for £1.99-£4.99ish each, in pot sizes that would cost at least £6.99 in a garden centre. (I appreciate that sounds a lot, but a decent packet of seeds of 1 variety is £1.99plus, and then you need seed trays, various potting on pots, John Innes no 1 and no2 etc)

Only thing is, depending on where you are, you shouldn't plant them out in the garden this early, and without hardening them off-you really need to wait until most chances of frost have gone for that.

May be better to get some summer flowering bulbs in the next few weeks, plant those and then see what Secret Garden have on offer in late March/April. Or-buy now, and put them out in the day, garage over night etc til the chance of a cold snap passes.

Both Thompson and Morgan and Suttons do big packets with 4-5 varieties of nasturtiums in, for between £3.65.and £4.95- I always get these for more variety. I think they're bright and cheerful (and go well with marigolds) and are fail safe (unless you try fertiliser with them, which sends the leaves mad). Just soak them in an egg cup of water for 24-48ish hours before planting, so that they germinate quicker. You can sow in pots indoors now, or direct into the ground as late as August for flowers the same year.

You can sow calendula (common marigold) seeds directly into the soil from about April, maybe May if you’re in a colder part of the country. They grow pretty fast so you should have a riot of orange/yellow by July-August. They’ll add a bit of height, and colour wise will go fabulously with the nasturtiums already suggested.

Just FYI, ‘marigold’ can refer to two different plant groups - calendula and tageta. Both are pretty easy to grow, and flower in a range of oranges, yellows and reds.

Other direct sow flowers that come up easily in my experience are night-scented stock (small pink/purple/white flowers), nigella (AKA love in a mist, blue flowers), aquilegia (tall, lots of colours available but tend to the pastels), morning glory (bright blue flowers, climb/tumble, great for pots or baskets) and alyssum (low growing, millions of small white/pink/purple flowers).

So it really depends on budget - if you can get away with a fiver, a mixed pack of nasturtiums is your friend (they also sell seeds in bigger supermarkets in the spring and summer, BTW) : if you've got £10-20 those plus summer bulbs and "tubers" (things like poppy or dicentra - basically looks like a bit of dirt and old root, but soak them and then plant). Gladioli are pretty reliable bulbs - also anenome and lily (especially day lily). I'd avoid dahlia as they generally need lifting over the winter.

Do the same in the autumn for spring bulbs (I get all mine for the house from poundshop type places - they aren't as good quality or as large as from the garden centre, but they're fine for my purposes) and you'll have colour nine months of the year. And more if you put evergreen shrubs in your pots!

Nigella and aquilegia are brilliant - and all these Pengling suggests will self-seed if you let them, so will spread and increase year on year.

if you can spend a bit, something like Hebe is a perennial that can look good all year around. once it is established, you'll have it for 10 years.

Rosemary & sage are also good herbs that you can often get cheap but they last for years.

One more question for you all:

If I plant lavender plugs now, will it grow into a nice bushy hedge THIS summer?

I’m in SE London - the temperature is just above 10c at the moment

Budget : I think I can go to £20 max —please don’t ask me how much I spent last year —

I need about £2-3 to buy trays for sowing and then another £5 for a bag of compost. The rest will be for seeds. I’m seeing some great bargains on Wilko website at the moment. At those prices, I can try!

Without meaning to state the obvious, it depends a lot on the size of the plugs - different suppliers will use different size cells and there can be quite a difference in maturity level.

That aside, in the right conditions lavender can grow reasonably fast. The thing lavender hates the most is wet feet, so to give it the best shot what I would do is prepare the area now by digging in a good amount of grit to improve drainage, then cover it with a plastic sheet for a few weeks to warm the soil. Get your plants mid March and pop them straight in. You want them about 40cm apart so get enough for that.

Bear in mind that quite a few flowering plants can be sown directly into the ground a bit later in the year (April/May) so depending on what else you want to grow you may not need trays.

Also, you mention your soil is poor, and you can definitely improve that by digging in compost, but don’t do that for the lavender because it prefers poor soil! Nasturtiums and calendula also tolerate poor soil just fine.

Can you give us an idea of the size of area you are trying to fill?

Cerinthe are very easy to grow.

Just put the seeds in and they are away.
Columbines as well, buy a couple of plants and watch then selfseed.

Both go straight in the soil, no faffing around with trays.

I planted bulbs and so now I have crocuses, dwarf daffodils and snowdrops. Coming to bloom I have hyacinths and bluebells. Then later on I will get my Lilly’s, gladioli and alliums. I then have a really hardy evergreen trailing foliage (can’t remember the name) There are other flowers but I planted them so that I get a flourish all year round. My lavender is still thriving but I tooked it closer to the house for a bit of protection.

Lidl have seeds in at the moment also some bulbs that were a pound a bag. They sell compost too at some point in the year, which is £2-3 a bag.

We are at the end of a complete house reno/extension and we have no garden left. Just mud. I have already asked my neighbours with large mature gardens for some cuttings or any plants they are digging up. They said they would happily help. I'm pretty clueless so I have asked for tips and what grows here etc. Do you any neighbours that could help?

Lavender will not grow to a good bushy hedge this year. By next summer it will have thickened out.
I think you need to think which way you want to go.

You could by shrubs which will get bigger every year, and eventually fill the border.

Or you can buy bedding plants and this will give short lived colour and scent.

Or, you could do a bit of both. I have several different lavenders in my border, with tulip and daff bulbs in between. I have planted some wallflowers for their amazing scent and colour. I have also got some tall plants which pop up every year with tiny purple flowers that the bees love but I can't remember whats its called. I also have a few peony plants which are very small but will get bigger and bigger over the next few years and I will get some gorgeous massive blooms in spring.

The area is not much - two strips of plant bedding 0.5m x 3m

As you walk into my drive, to your right is the front garden area. Strip 1 is directly after the footpath IYKWIM. Then there is some lawn and then strip 2 (when I open my living room window, strip 2 is just below it)

I also have a large back garden, which is mainly lawn and mature evergreens. I will put some colour in there too (if I manage to germinate many seeds!)

I think I will forget the lavender then. I really want something that blooms this year

I bought some really good perennials from BandM (garden centre) they are really good value and have flourished and made quite an impact in my garden last year. Can’t say the same for this year as we may not have the weather!

In that case, if this was my garden I would be deciding at this point whether I want to go for a warm or cool colour scheme, then buy seeds accordingly.

For a warm colour scheme I would probably sow a variety pack of nasturtiums along the front edges of each border, orange/pink/yellow gladioli and calendulas towards the back as they are tall, and fill in with white alyssum or limnanthes.

For a cooler colour scheme I would sow aquilegia and pink/white/purple gladioli at the back, alyssum in the middle and convolvulus and lobelia at the front.

Either scheme should give you a good bit of colour through the summer and into early autumn. In autumn you can plant spring-flowering bulbs so you start getting flowers earlier next year.

Definitely a warm colour scheme. I might even consider turning the heat right up with some reds.

Some varieties of nasturtium come in red, and you could add some red crocosmia as well.

OP do you make you own compost? It's very satisfying and often the council will provide a low cost composter.
I personally love Hollyhocks. You can just scatter them on top of the ground and they grow like weeds. They also LOVE poor soil. Unfortunately they won't flower until the following year but once you have got some they just self set and self set.
Another option is to just buy one single plant. It will flower this year and you will get masses of seeds you can collect and scatter everywhere.

On a different note - I have planted nasturtiums for flowers to eat but they get absolutely coveted in black fly. Any advice from anyone? (Thought it might be helpful to OP as so many people have recommended them).