Update on annual flower bed.

Each year I create an annual flower bed in at least one part of the plot.

In the past I have sown the seeds in pots in the greenhouse and then transplanted in clumps. I posted about this technique here. It was the method that I used last year which resulted in the display shown below. The photos were taken on 30 July 2016.

I was quite pleased with the result. I then decided to use up the seeds that I had left over and sowed them directly later in July. They germinated well and I also noticed that the resulting plants grew stronger, so with this in mind, I decided this year to direct sow the main annual bed. An added advantage was that I would free up space in the greenhouse at a time when space is at a premium.

I had the following list of seeds.

The original plan was to direct sow the hardy annuals and sow the half hardy ones in modules as usual. The half hardies would later be planted in gaps between the hardy varieties.

I direct sowed the seeds in mid May. These were sown in trenches cut in weed control fabric and filled with compost.

Shortly after sowing the seeds we had a rare day of heavy rain which was followed by a short hot spell and then cool drizzly conditions.  From then on we had conditions hardly conducive to seed germination. It wasn't only the annual flowers that suffered. Many seeds that did manage to germinate fell victim to hungry slugs.

So how have things developed and what have I learned. The first thing is that in dry conditions compost dries out very quickly and, despite watering the seed bed on every visit to the plot, I'm sure some emerging seedlings suffered from being too dry. Their shallow, immature root system maybe struggled to find sufficient moisture. Our clay soil is very rough and not ideal for direct sowing of small seeds and so we have since adapted our sowing medium. We now mix the soil excavated from the trench with compost.

Growth was slow and seedlings appeared in patches. I resowed some new seed in bare areas to try and compensate but the overall patchiness wasn't helped by my decision to use the half hardy annuals in the refurbished perennial bed.

No matter how hard I tried I couldn't keep the didiscus from being demolished by slugs. I'm trying to grow some in pots on the garden at the moment but the slugs are moving in one them.

The amberboa that I was looking forward to didn't germinate at all.

In the end I have ended up with the display shown in the photos below.

I think I have ended up with less variety in the bed than previously but we still have a reasonable display. Maybe I need something frothy like the ammi which was included last year.

The calendula seeds were gathered from a flower colour that I really liked last year but unfortunately the colours haven't come true.

One thing that I have noticed however, is that the plants are much sturdier than in previous years. This is particularly apparent in the case of the poppies.

 Their stems are very strong.

Would growing in pots have been more successful? I don't think so. Transplanted seedlings always seemed to stall and flag on planting out and individual plants never ended up as strong as this year's. On top of that I reckon they would have really struggled to take off in this year's conditions. They are also just as vulnerable to slug devastation.

So moving forward to next year:

• I will sow direct again but in a soil/compost mix and maybe slightly later than this year. Maybe the end of May.
• I'll choose only hardy annuals for this bed.

Which variety of hardy annual would be on the top of your to grow list?

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett