I'd like a garden filled with sunflowers, poppies, cornflowers - nothing unusual there. However, I fail miserably with them all. The sunflowers end up about a foot tall with a flower no larger than a dandelion. Poppies that apparently self seed everywhere for others, put in a meagre show then disappear. Cornflowers, those bright blue flowers that are included in Easy-grow packets for children, are not so easy for an old biddy like me.
Am I alone or do others struggle with certain flowers?
I’ve not had any success with stocks. The voles eat them before they can flower.
I struggle with everything that's not a bean, tomato, courgette or corn. Hollyhocks always get rust, roses get black spot, asters come to now't, I've killed more clematis than I can count and I failed miserably with Californian poppies. The list is endless.
I've got shrubs and some flowers that self seed apart from that I sow sunflowers, marigolds and a few nasturtiums not sure when I bother sowing nasturtiums because they pop up all over the veg beds.
Really I'd like more wild flowers but they never seem to grow.
Can’t grow ranunculus (very jealous of Scarlet’s beauties).
Mine always rot and shrivel.
Loads of other things that I always fail with too -
Dahlias, hollyhocks, Chinese lanterns, lily of the valley.
I could make a very long list - but it’s too depressing.
Well at the moment my anemone bed has taken a huge hit with the frost - lost of those have rotted off
- and most of my greenhouse autumn sound hardy annuals have suffered too - every year has different challenges?
Euphorbia- snow on the mountain - has proved very tricky for me. Not managed it yet!
Greenhouse seems to be a happy spot for fungis hnats at the moment. Always had some issues... but thoroughly cleaned out out again in September- pots are crawling with them.
Oh yes - like Scarlet, I lost most of my autumn sown seedlings.
Only survivors were sweet peas (hooray for those).
Got to think about a complete restart -though if my Market Days are over (see moans and groans!!) I shall need to scale it all down significantly.
(11-02-2023, 06:39 PM)Farendwoman Wrote: [ -> ]Oh yes - like Scarlet, I lost most of my autumn sown seedlings.
Only survivors were sweet peas (hooray for those).
Got to think about a complete restart -though if my Market Days are over (see moans and groans!!) I shall need to scale it all down significantly.
Give your table a little boost? Maybe try a few more expensive items along with your usual to fill up your table - invest in some secondhand vases for bulbs? Thinking of doing that myself. More cut flowers yourself?