What flowers to grow from seed now?

[AR77]

Hi everyone. I've been gardening for several years now and like many of you, I'm totally addicted.

I've got a lovely garden now but one thing I'm not great at yet is knowing what to plant to have flowers for as long as possible.

Are there any flowers that I grow from seed now that will flower in late autumn? I live in London so it doesn't usually start getting proper cold until October.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

If you're quick you can sow lots of lovely biennials now to plant out in September for next year. Foxgloves, wallflowers, sweet William, sweet rocket. Some may flower in autumn but early spring (before aspiring sown annuals would flower) you'll have flowers for months.
Also direct sowing Hardy annuals in autumn is great- things like cerinthe. Higgledey garden blog is good for advice on this.

Spring not aspiring 🙄

I can't think of anything that you can sow now that will flower before this winter if that's what you mean.

If you go into a local garden centre or nursery and scan the seed packets, you might find something there that can be sown in July or August but these are usually for next year's flowers. I've just bought red pansy seeds for next year but I couldn't find anything that could be sown now for flowers this year.

Unless you sow for example Rocket or Coriander and sow that, which will likely bolt this year and give you some colour. Even if it is yellow or white the bees do love them.

Thanks for that. I appreciate the advice. If I plant some for next summer will they survive outside over winter? I'm a bit limited on indoor space and don't have a greenhouse...unfortunately.

I'm hoping to turn this love of gardening into a side hustle at some point so I can afford the electric bill...Too late for this year then. Haha.

Yes as pp have said, now is the time for biennials. But you can still grow some flowers for this year! You can sow pansies and violas now to flower over the Autumn and Winter. There are some v quick growing annuals that will flower this year. I have sown Linaria maroccana a few days ago. All being well it should come into flower at the beginning of September and give me a few weeks of colour before the frosts get it - actually last year mine flowered through the winter. Linaria is super easy to grow and cheap as chips, so get those seeds sown! :)

I haven't grown them before but nasturtiums are also apparently quick - flowering in 6 weeks, so worth a go too. I think I might sow some this weekend and see what happens. I sow almost everything in trays outside (well repurposed food containers actually) - no need to mollycoddle them indoors. (You can read about the Winter Sowing Method if you're interested in this.) Good luck!

You could also take a chance on California poppies - they take a couple of months from seed to bloom, but if we have a mild Autumn you might be lucky with a few weeks, and they're also really cheap, so worth a go. I'm always trying things that aren't standard advice. Some don't work out, but a lot do. It's fun to experiment a bit.

7-8 weeks for calendula. I'm inspired now, I'm going to sow a few things this weekend just to see what I can get to flower late summer/early autumn - nothing ventured, nothing gained.

If you fancy branching out into veg, cut and come again salad leaves, radishes, coriander and spinach are quick and easy to grow in pots or troughs and will give you fresh veg in a few weeks.

Brilliant! Thank you all so much for the advice! The seeds are ordered. The compost is ordered. What can possibly go wrong? Haha.

This has been the first year I've got into propagating and I'm an addict. I'm a teacher and there is a school garden so I was hoping to take some plants for them in September.

It's so good to have something positive for focus on.

I really appreciate the tips and help. I love the mumsnet gardening section. Thank you so much.

I just noticed two of my nasturtiums have come into bloom this morning, and thought I'd check in and see how you got on with your late summer sowing, @AR77 . Any luck?

My linaria started blooming a few weeks ago, as did my cornflowers, though the latter have been small and unimpressive. Not sure about the calendula as I planted them in amongst existing calendula plants. There are very healthy looking California poppy, corncockle and nigella plants but no sign of blooming, so they may not flower till early summer. I've had lots of violas and pansies for weeks (sowed in the 3rd week of July), but unfortunately they all got mildew, so I'll probably try to resow in the next few days, though I'm not sure they'll bloom before spring. It's all a learning process! I hope you've got at least a few blooms anyway.

Hey Peelpeel! Great to hear from you.

Well... not really... the nastutiums (sorry about spelling) germinated well and grew quite well. However... a load got eaten by caterpillars and the leaves on some of the others started going yellow. I moved them into my friends plastic greenhouse and they have recovered...but not sure they will flower in time. I've got some sweet william in there that might flower early next year?

I can't complain though because the dalias I FROM seed are still going strong so I will consider that to be a success. The cosmos gave up the ghost after the heatwave. The chilli plants are still producing fruit though and I've let the basil go to seed to collect for next year.

Gardening...so many failures every year. Haha. I'm starting to think about bulbs now and how to stop the bloody squirrels having a field day like last year. Haha.

In about a month you can start off your sweet pea seeds for next year. Buy the seeds quick before your favourites sell out, I also stock up on nasturtium seeds because I always buy Empress of India and sometimes it is hard to find. So start collecting cardboard tubes because sweet peas like a long root run.

I cover bulbs in pots with wire racks saved from past mini greenhouses, I find I can cover several pots with the same rack. Wire netting would do the same job, make sure you weigh or pin the covering down as squirrels and foxes are determined little critters.

(you can make pins from wire coat hangers)

Thank you ever so much taking the time to share the advice - very much appreciated. I always try to make sure the garden gets better every year and I get so depressed come mid-winter I'm keen to have something on the go for mental health reasons. Haha.