I've toyed with the idea of sowing a few, but then my seed budget is limited and I always want instant gratification, so they always get crossed of the list and the annuals win out. Then of course in spring i think to myself, gee if I had sown those biennials last year.....

I did have a solitary white foxglove pop up in one bed two years ago. Odd, since I hadn't had foxgloves there in a few years. I let it bloom and go to seed, had about three foxgloves last year, and now this year have many little foxglove seedlings, which I'm loving! Moved a few around just to give the some spacing and I'm looking forward to more blooms.

You sow so many seeds! I'm still trying to get my winter-sown babies out of their milk jugs! Lol and I'm already a week behind sowing lettuce for my daughter - I told her I'd sow some every two weeks and here I've already missed the second sowing. The second lol! Did one, already messing up lol!

A planned program of biennial sowing would be more pressure than I could bear lol

:)

Dee

Ah, I don't have the pressure of vegetables anymore, Dee, so I haven't done much for a couple of months (although I do tomatoes and curcubits). Certainly none of that successional stuff. Biennials, I don't do them in pots either, but line them out in a little nursery bed, just like, lettuce, say, then transplant them in the autumn. Plus, I do save a lot of seed so have really only bought a handful of new to me things like the rose-pinks (I already grow centaury erythraea so really looking forward to trying sabatia).

I don't care about instant gratification...for me it is all about the process (although this is emphatically not the case with knitting, sewing, woodwork etc.) - I dither and agonise when it comes to actually setting plants out in the garden, then I frequently forget about them and move on to more growing. I am really trying to move away from annuals, too. And often, biennials are really obliging at self-seeding - you just need to do it a couple of times to get the 2 year cycle going...as you can see with the foxgloves.

I was going to say go on, go on, you will be so glad you did wallflowers or stocks....but I did see the enormous number of milkjugs!

Yes, I do know how much you like seeds, and the actual sowing and growing of them, and saving them etc. I am more into the actual plant - as you saw in my post about liking or disliking the act of sowing seeds, I come down more on the disliking side! And while I often think of saving my own seed, it just seems so much easier to buy some later in the year than try to save, dry, and store it properly.

I love reading your posts and you should see the image in my mind when I do - your greenhouse (which honestly I have no idea what it looks like, but it's definitely yours in my mind lol - charming, rustic, not at all modern but much more Edwardian) filled with all kinds of little pots of wonderfully-named seeds and seedlings, not necessarily in disarray but not completely neat and organized either - kind of a thing where things are tucked into any niche that's available because you sow so much. But of course you know where everything is. And then you clear it out in spring (probably planting willy-nilly as I do, just to get them in the ground) and then it's on to more seed-starting. It's all a wonderfully romantic image, and despite what you say to bring me back to reality I am going to keep that image in my mind because that's how I like to picture your seed operation lol.

I have reduced my veggies to tomatoes and cukes (and I may throw some beans in the ground) but this year my daughter very ambitiously put in a large vegetable garden (or should I say I did it for her lol) and she eats a LOT of salad, as do I. She is also very careful of what she feeds her 2-year-old twins, especially because one of them has some health issues. All that put together with the increasing recalls of greens (and with things looking to get worse thanks to the dismantling of our government and the dwindling oversight of FDA inspectors) I told her I would succession sow the lettuce for her and the girlies. I really don't mind it at all, but as anyone here who has heard me complain, I never seem to have any time and even if I do, I am a terrible procrastinator. But being off from work today and heading outside, I think those lettuce trays will be the first thing I do!

Oh, also wanted to add - my annuals are holdovers from the days I sold bouquets at a few farmers markets. I just can't NOT have bouquets in my house, at my workplace, etc. So I MUST sow some flowers for cutting. I DO have a lot of reseeders, which isn't quite the same as biennials but they are self-sown and return every year, so they are similar in that respect - nigella, larkspur, Queen Anne's lace, rudbeckias, agastache, several different feverfews - although I was horrified to learn that bees don't like feverfew so I am rethinking letting those stay...

:)

Dee

O, ha ha...the greenhouse is a largish commercial metal job (12 x 16ft) - not remotely edwardian or charming. My (ahem) potting bench is an old wooden desk I 'rescued' when our local police station had a refurb (used to belong to the chief inspector so that, at least, fits with a more charming aesthetic). I use 3 galvanised dustbins for potting mixes and perlite and my youngest made fitted shelving for the pots, labels and various 'stuff'. It takes up almost a third of my garden space but because it is glass, it is not an oppressive structure and is largely hidden beneath shrubs, climbers and such. My favourite place in the house...even more than my sewing room (where I have an embarrassingly large number of sewing machines, spinning wheel and many baskets of yarns).

2 year old twins!!! I have 3 teenage grand-daughters, plus a 3year old grandson and, fantastically, just this weekend, a new 11 month old grand-daughter (my youngest and partner have been through almost 5 years waiting for adoption). I found it hard and not a little boring, being a parent (possibly cos I was the oldest of 6 and had any maternal instinct knocked out of me)...but I bloody LOVE being a nana. Don't yours live quite nearby? How joyous. The teenagers appear when it suits (them) but the babies involve car rides (or a longish bike ride). All of the offspring are equally crazed gardeners (oldest and I went to hort.college together) so there is a lot of swapping and sharing.

I am trying to make a more sustainable garden/allotment, so growing sturdier perennials instead of mad and fanciful 5 minute whims. And buying in stuff, instead of feeling I have to grow everything myself (have just bought 3 crocosmia 'Hellfire' and 3 selinum wallichianum, 2 cephalaria gigantea and a couple more agapanthus 'Enigma' as well as the biennial seed orders. O, and a bunch of lewisia seeds which have taken over from auriculas for my 'little treasures in pots'.

No, I'm sorry, but your greenhouse is Edwardian and rustic and charming. I can see it in my imagination right now.....

Congratulations on your newest grandchild!!!! That is amazing news and I wish you, the baby and her parents all the very best!! It's a fabulous thing, isn't it?

Yes my girlies live about 8 houses down the street from me, and I am blessed to see them pretty much once a day, at least. I'm actually at the house TWICE a day, but one time is in the morning so my daughter can get off to work, and they are usually sleeping (and truth be told, so am I, lol, on the couch!). I myself am off to work before they get up so they see their other grandma in the morning and then I come back every evening to help with dinner and bath time and bed time, etc. I'm one of 6 as well, but it was a split family (divorce) and so only two others lived in the same house. I WAS the oldest girl, so I did get stuck with the care of a younger sibling, and all the housework, when my mother worked nights, but I guess it wasn't bad enough to knock me off motherhood. There is something special about being a grandma (or a Baba or Babi, in my case) although to be honest I'm there so much sometimes I have to remind myself that they do indeed have parents and I need to let them take control lol. I'm just hoping the girlies have more interest in gardening than my own children have (which is zero, zilch, nada) because it would be a wonderful thing to share!

Since we're already wildly off-topic, I might as well ask - do you spin? I think that's amazing. I know a woman who spins. She has definitely been endowed with way more than her share of talents and I am in awe of her.

To bring things BACK on topic - I just did a quick stroll of my garden and noticed those reseeded foxgloves seemed to be stuck. I don't think there has been much change to them in the last few weeks. Think it's still too cloudy/drizzly for them to do much....

:)

Dee

I do spin. I have an old Ashford but much prefer using a spindle, which is slower and more meditative. I once had the mad idea of attempting flax too, making my own fibre from scratch. Sort of thing you do once and never again. Bloody Hell, though Dee...how dynamic are you? I often look back on my child rearing days with utter amazement. How did I do it? How did we all survive? With only a few temporary fall-outs. (although I think the words 'family therapy' fell from my lips quite a few times. And probably bribery/liberal drink, drugs and rock and roll.

O, the foxgloves will sit there, looking ridiculously tiny...until suddenly they don't. They don't do too much over summer but come September...boom.

I started Argemone albiflora in regular potting mix, but had to plant them in fast draining sandy mix early on. My Cnidium and Orlaya have successfully become permanent nomads. Unfortuately my Ipomopsis rubra seeds that I scattered haven't germinated. I cant help but think of rouge when I think of Standing Cypress. Have you grown Rudbeckia triloba? Im curious about it's behavior over there. It's a prolific seeder here. I havent had luck germinating Sabatia yet. My favorite Evening Primrose is the night blooming Oenothera macrocarpa/missuriensis. It's perennial. It looks great planted with succulents. Those huge yellow flowers are beautiful. I hope I can resolve this photo issue soon. Sweet Betsy, which plant disease did you give your daughter? Fusarium wilt? Blight?😂🤣 Time for a spliff.

Some additions today that have been sitting in the driveway. Meadowbrite coneflower.