Flowers in pots and baskets grown from seeds

louise3965

Hello all. Hope you can help me as am useless. But plan to become less useless!

I usually pay and buy hanging baskets for my back yard but they afre sooooo expensive ( have 5 hanging baskets and 4 of the half moon things that hang on the wall) plus I buy bedding plants for the tubs.

But I want to grow my own this year.

My plan is to buy seeds - bizzy lizzies, geraniums, nasturtiums are what I can think of. Then I put them in the seed trays on the windowsill, covered with a plastic lid thing and wait for them to grow. When they grow I take the lid off and let them grow more. When should I plant these though, to be ready for summer hanging baskets (am keen to get going but fear its too early!!!!!)

I dont have a greenhouse, so have to do all this on 2 windowsills. Should I buy one of those Wilkos mini greenhouse things, basically shelves with a plaggy cover? Then I can put them in there before they are ready to actually go outside?

Am so excited about this

gazza975526570

louise3965 wrote: »

Hello all. Hope you can help me as am useless. But plan to become less useless!

I usually pay and buy hanging baskets for my back yard but they afre sooooo expensive ( have 5 hanging baskets and 4 of the half moon things that hang on the wall) plus I buy bedding plants for the tubs.

But I want to grow my own this year.

My plan is to buy seeds - bizzy lizzies, geraniums, nasturtiums are what I can think of. Then I put them in the seed trays on the windowsill, covered with a plastic lid thing and wait for them to grow. When they grow I take the lid off and let them grow more. When should I plant these though, to be ready for summer hanging baskets (am keen to get going but fear its too early!!!!!)

I dont have a greenhouse, so have to do all this on 2 windowsills. Should I buy one of those Wilkos mini greenhouse things, basically shelves with a plaggy cover? Then I can put them in there before they are ready to actually go outside?

Am so excited about this

You need to get started now to get them big enough for summer plants. You could get them started on your windowsill or but one of those plastic greenhouses.

I always find busy lizzies dont germinate for me no matter what methods i try!

louise3965

ok thanks, will buy some seeds, I have trays and the plastic lids so can start them off. But what's this about germinating? I dont know what that actually means?

peter_the_piper

Unless you have the right conditions you could end up with wasting money. It may well be cheaper in the long run to wait till the end of the month and buy small plants wherever is cheapest near you. You won't be able to plant them into the baskets before early April if you start off your own seeds so you may not gain anything.

louise3965

oh, so I've left it too late? What about those plug things in the newspapers? Are they any good?

peter_the_piper

I really cannot say as I don't use them. Hopefully others, who have used them, can advise.

enrich100

Its down to personal choice and also where you live

I grow a lot of my own bedding plants myself and if you have the space personally I prefer growing from seed as you can grow what you want and not make do with what you can find, the ideal time to plant is 4 to 6 weeks before your last frost which for me in the South is right about now alternatively look at the back of the packet of seeds it will tell you when to sow, when to plant out and when they will flower, when you grow your own plants you will have to aclimatise the plants to the outdoors before planting out.

tanith

You can start them off as you suggest but at some point you will have to !!!!! them out of the seed trays and transfer to either small plug size pots or thin them out in the trays so they have room to grow.. are your window sills big enough to accommadate them when they are bigger? It would be a shame to get them going if you don't have the room later on , you definately cannot put them outside till probably May ..

Jack's_mummy

I grow my lobelia from seed every year. Dead easy once I realised that you can pot them on in clumps rather than single teeny tiny seedlings

knithryn

Don't be put off by the (sound but gloomy) advice above.
You can buy some plug plants for hanging baskets etc cheaply in B&Q, and top up with some seed-grown stuff.
For the seed-grown stuff, because you have limited space, only seed-grow stuff that is more expensive, and quite big... so perhaps some tumbling tomatoes (one or two only per basket), or buy small plug fuschias to bring on on a windowsill (should be about 75p each - need one per basket) instead of buying big ones at several pounds each later in the season.
Then next autumn look at what you have and how to overwinter it or take cuttings (fuschia and pelargonium spring to mind, plus begonias).
So I'd only grow stuff from seed if
1. I can grow it really REALLY cheaply (like the lobelia where you get thousands of seeds in a packet)
OR
2. It's expensive to buy and you can grow the seeds easily and only need a few (tumbling toms)
I have similar problems, although I DO have a plastic greenhouse. To be honest they aren't that great. In winter I don't want to go out to it and get wet, and the cover flaps around and gets ripped. (I thought somebody had nicked my outer winter cover, until a neighbour discovered it in their garden under their patio chairs!) In summer they just take up space. The best use I have for mine is that it protects my nectarine and stops it getting peach leaf curl because it is under cover for early spring.

gillian62

Morrisons have some seed mats for hanging baskets that you put straight on top of basket and soil, and they grow a variety of plants. They are £2 each, or 2 for £3. I've got a couple of these this year, as I want to concentrate my time on growing veggies, so flower garden needs to be as simple as possible.