~ Seed for Garden Flowers ~

Although we are focused primarily on vegetables, we think every garden should look lovely too - there's always room for a clump of flowers somewhere! Here is our collection of easy and cheerful cottage-garden flowers to brighten up your day.

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Night Scented Stock

One of Ben's all-time favourite cottage-garden flowers. The pale pink blooms release a wonderful scent which is at its strongest at dusk - just a few plants can fill the garden with perfume on a still evening - definitely plant some under your bedroom window if you can.

Ready in about 6-8 weeks - sow in spring, after the last frost, in trays or small pots, prick out when big enough to handle, and transplant out when 4 inches high, about 6-8 inches apart. Enjoy the scent!

Very easy, such a strong scent. Great for kids too.

approximately 1000 seed £

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Virginia Day-Scented Stock

This is a different flower, again with a wonderful scent, but during the day, rather than the evening. Small plants (8 inches or so) in a mix of pale shades, and very easy to grow, great for children.

Very easy, great for kids too.

approximately 1000 seed £

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Wallflowers - 'My Fair Lady' mixed colours. NEW

Do you remember these from your grandparents' garden? Wallflowers are great - you sow them any time up to August and they flower early the next spring, about 40cm tall with a huge range of colours.

Easy and cheery spring flower to brighten up your garden.

approximately 400 seed £

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Zinnias - dahlia flowered doubles, in mixed colours.

Zinnias are beautiful , crazy flowers in really bright colours, and will grow well in the UK as long as they don't get too cold and damp. Plant in spring, not too early, so that it isn’t cold when they need to be planted out. They will grow slowly at first but by late summer they should make a good display with many velvety flowers.

This is a whole mix of colours and shapes, but they all have the little ring of central star-shaped florets that make Zinnias so special.

You can grow them in a flower bed or interspersed with your vegetables.

approximately 200 seed £

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Carnations - "Giant Chabaud" mix

Carnations are another brilliantly scented flower, traditionally used by florists as they keep so well when cut, but also beautiful and long-lasting in the gaden. The “Chabaud” variety are a large upright variety, heavily scented with a heady clovey aroma, and in a really good range of colours. Surprisingly easy to grow.

Very good as a cut flower - they last for a long time in a vase.

about 300 seed £

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Tricolor Mix Clary-sage

A decorative plant about 2 ft tall - with very pretty blue/white/pink leaves making a good show in the summer. Attractive to insects too. Very easy to grow and good as a cut or dried flower.

Please note that although beautiful, it is not the same as the herb called 'sage' and should not be cooked with.

approximately 500 seed £

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China Cat Sunflower Mix

A fantastic multi-headed sunflower with rings of orange on its yellow petals.

About 5 foot tall, the nice thing about this is that lots of smaller heads are produced over a long season, so it is ideal for cutting, or just a fancy display in the garden. The seeds are a reasonable size and you could save them to eat or feed the birds.

This variety was created by Alan Kapuler of Peace Seeds. To get the multi-heading habit, he crossed 'Gloriosa' with silverleaf sunflowers, and named the variety after the 1972 song by the psychedelic rock band The Grateful Dead.

The song is pretty cool, but the sunflowers are even better, and less likely to annoy your neighbours.

18 seed £

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'Red Centre' Sunflower

To help make your vegetable patch beautiful we have these unusual sunflowers from Czechia.

They have deep red centres, with varying amounts of yellow-orange edges to the petals, and it is weather-dependent: the hotter the weather the redder they are. The 6 foot plants produce one main head and a few extras suitable for cutting, but also brilliant for just admiring at the back of a border.

The colour is stunning and the seed would of course be edible if the sparrows didn't always get there first.

approximately 25 seed £

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Autumn Beauty Sunflower Mix

From 2 to 4m tall, these sunflowers are mostly yellows with the occasional oranges and reds, to cheer up your garden.

A bit of a lucky dip, this mix, some people get lots of red, others get all yellowy-oranges; we think it depends both on soil and night-time temperatures!

at least 20 seed £

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'Dwarf Fantasy' Mini Sunflower Mix

Mini sunflowers? This might seem a bit of an odd idea - but they are really, really pretty, short little sunflowers of different shades, they look great in the flower border....

Very cute little sunflowers about 2 to 3ft tall, ideal for the back of a flowerbed or cutting - sure to make you smile.

about 25 seed, organic £

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Sunzilla VERY BIG HEADS

This new variety of sunflower grows to about 10ft tall and has been chosen for the absurdly large heads that it makes  - 18 to 24 inches in diameter!

Selected by Tim Peters of  “The Bigger and Better Nursery”, who has bred for a thicker stem so there is less risk of it collapsing under the weight of the massive flowers.

In fact the whole plant is ‘supersized’ and the leaves are enormous as well, as you can see in the photo whith Jemma.

A very, very BIG sunflower. Stake well in windy sites so it doesn’t blow over .

10 seed £

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Giganteus VERY TALL

A modern selection of the old ‘Uniflorus Giganteus’ , this makes really tall sunflowers to about 10ft, with pale yellow petals and a dark centre.

A very, very tall sunflower. Stake well in windy sites so it doesn’t blow over .

packet of 20 - 25 seed £

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'Marvel of Peru' - the Four O'Clock Plant

A wonderful plant that opens its flowers in late afternoon each day. Also known as ‘Belle de Nuit’ or Night Beauty, it’s a really easy-to-grow and beautiful flower, making small bushes about 2 ft across, with multicoloured trumpet-shaped blooms.

It's designed to attract moths, so the flowers stay open all evening.

Sow the seeds in deep pots, 2 or 3 per pot, in late spring and keep moist until they germinate.

about 40 seed £

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Mixed Nigella, or 'Love in the Mist'

Nigella is a beautiful traditional garden flower, which we remember growing as children. Very easy - sow in spring (say late Feb or so onwards) in trays and transplant into little pots once they grow big enough to handle. Then from April - May onwards , once the soil has warmed up and there is no risk of frost, they can be planted outdoors in their final position, about 6” apart.

An easy cottage-garden flower, this is a mix of colours grown on our fields.

about 200 seed, £

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Monstrusum Mixed Tall Strawflower

Strawflowers are easy, and great for dried flowers as well as blazing with colour in the gaden. This is a pretty mixed population with hot reds and golds plus magenta, lavender, pink and white, growing to about 3ft outdoors or 5ft under cover.

Ours kept on flowering right until late November last year, long after everything else had given up. They are also simple to cut and dry for a permanent display, and amazingly keep their bright colours when dried.

The plants are so easy to grow and keep flowering right until the first frosts in winter.

about 500 seed £

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Aquilegia "Mixed Large Flowered"

Aquilegias (also known as Granny's Bonnet or Columbine) are another of Ben's favourite flowers, and this is a special mix of different types , giving you a whole range of colours.

Sow in spring in April/May. Once big enough to handle move them into pots, later on transplant them out.

They will flower the following spring, and in mild areas will survive for several years, as well as new baby plants coming from the seed they make. Easy and beautiful!

Please note Aquilegia are not edible, these are for decoration only.

about 300 seed £

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Forget-Me-Not "Royal Indigo Blue"

A very pretty and easy cottage-garden flower. Simple to sow and grow, and will often self-seed thereafter.

Sow in spring in trays with some heat and plant out once the weather is really good; the biggest plants will flower straight away,and the rest will flower the following spring. They can easily be transplanted around the garden to make a nice bedding display, or left to grow where they wish for a more natural look.

Forget-me-not petals are edible and can be used for cake decoration or sprinkled on desserts, but they're not particularly tasty.

about 500 seed £

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Poached Egg Plant ATTRACTS BENEFICIAL INSECTS

A very easy, beautiful and child-friendly plant. Sow in Spring, in a fine tilth directly where you want them to grow; the seeds should be about 3mm deep. An old favourite of ours, the plants make a spreading low mat with cheerful white and yellow flowers.

Not edible, for decoration only. Attracts beneficial insects such as hoverflies to your plot.

about 200 seed £

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Sunset Orange Cosmos

An easily-grown annual garden flower bearing masses of lovely orange daisy-like blooms throughout summer and autumn. The plants grow about 30-40cm tall and make a great addition to the broder.

Start in spring in trays or small pots ; once all risk of cold weather has passed, harden off in a sheltered spot for a few hours each day so they get used to the wind and sun, then plant out in their final spot. A big bed can look really impressive, and if you regularly pick off dead flowers they will keep blooming longer.

about 50-100 seed £

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Mixed California poppies NEW

An easily grown & relatively drought tolerant garden flower., this is a mix of mostly yellows and oranges, plus a few of the rarer red & white flowered strains. These look really lovely in the garden and flower for a long time, as well as being easy for kids to grow.

Seeds not edible, but you can put the petals in salads if you like.

pkt of seed (hundreds), organic £

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Sweet William SCENTED

Another great cottage-garden flower, good for kids as they're pretty simple and reliable., and are good either in the garden or as a cut flower.

Sow seed in summer (May to August) for a mass of flowers the following summer. You can sow in-situ , or start in trays/modules. Plant out to their final position once big enough to look after themselves; they do need full sun but don't mind being close together; they're trouble-free and need little attention once they are established.

This variety has longer stems good for cut flowers. Not edible.

about 400 seed £

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Bolero French Marigolds

Here we have beautiful dwarf marigolds to interplant with your other crops; the roots repel nematodes in the soil and the flowers attract beneficial pollinators. We always put them in clumps among our tomatoes in the tunnel!

Easy to grow. Sow in Spring in pots/modules undercover, plant out to a final spacing of about 5 inches to 1 ft apart.

French Marigolds are not edible.

about 200 seed £

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Tall Mixed Snapdragons

Snapdragons are a beautiful and easy cottage-garden flower, and this packet is a mix of different colours.

Really easy and ideal for children. Sow in spring in seed trays or small pots in gentle warmth and when the baby plants are big enough to handle, then pot them on into individual pots.

Once the weather has warmed up and there’s no further risk of frost, then they can be planted out in their final position, about a foot apart in a flower bed or in big planters.

Snapdragon flowers are edible, and can be used for decoration, but they don't taste nice.

about 200 seed, organic £

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Mammoth Mixed Sweet Peas

New this year, a beautiful mix of large-flowered and heavily-scented traditional sweet peas, suitable for use both as a cut flower & brightening up your garden.

This is a particularly early & tall variety, climbing up to 6 foot - the flowers are notably large, with long stems, so they work well in a vase, filling the whole room with their perfume.

Note for beginner gardeners: Sweet Peas are NOT edible. They are only decorative; although they look similar to garden peas, they are a totally different plant and not all all good for humans if eaten.

50 seed, £

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