Growing flowers from seed

[MrsGethinJones]

Is this easy to do e.g. for sweet peas and violas next year? I have space in the pantry area to place some seed trays, and have room at the side of the garden from a mini (not walk in) greenhouse.

Also how long do seeds last before they are planted? Ive noticed that a packet may contain 150 seeds however i dont need 150 of the same plant!

To be honest these can be directly sown in the ground. I get much more pleasure this way but that's just me.

If you do want to be grown from seed is your pantry open for natural daylight?

Some plants are easy from seed, others aren't.

Sweet peas are easy, and planting indoors gives them a head start but they can get lank and leggy if they don't have enough light.

Violas are easy but I think probably easier to just sow outdoors.

My other easy favourite is cosmos - you can do batches at intervals so you can plant them out in succession.

I'm sure there are lots of others you can try.

With regards to numbers, I have found that with some seeds about 90% will actually germinate and sometimes 25% or even less.

So you probably won’t get hundreds of flowers. But it is fun and saves loads of money.

The length of time they last depends on the variety. Most peas and beans last for years, so I would expect sweet peas to do so too, but there aren't many seeds in the pack so I've never had a chance to try keeping them more than two years.

Flowers which rely on bare ground for germination sit around for years waiting for something to grub up the ground and bring them to the surface, indicating to them it's safe to germinate because there won't be much competition. This applies to foxgloves, poppies and probably to most annuals.

Plants in the carrot family don't have long lasting seeds - in terms of flower plants this is mainly Amni and Astrantia. Tagetes don't seem to be very long lasting either.