Some flowers are very hard to start from seed and others are easy. I start most of my flowers from seed inside under lights in about the same way I start veggie seed. Unlike most veggie seeds, though, flower seeds vary widely in conditions needed to induce germination. Some are easy to grow from seed but many are challenging.

Some flower seeds are exceptionally tiny and must be surface sown and this includes begonia, coleus and penta seed. Also, some of these--like begonias and pentas sprout into very tiny plants that can take up to 5 months to get large enough to transplant outside. (sigh) With seeds which are that tiny and which take so long to grow to a manageable size, I tend to just buy transplants instead of dealing with them.

Then there are a the flower varieties whose seed require cold scarification--exposure to cold temperatures for a certain period of time (which varies per type) before they will sprout. Cleome, Kiss-Me-Over-The-Garden-Gate and echinacea are examples of this type of seed. For them, I usually put the seed packets inside zip-lock bags and write the date on the bag, so I can keep track of how long the seeds have been inside the fridge. Some of these WILL eventually sprout without cold scarification, but at low rates.

Then there are the seeds whose seed coats are VERY hard, like bluebonnets and moonvine flowers, for example. For many of these, you can have trouble getting them to germinate unless you use one of several methods to break through that seed coat. Sometimes all you have to do is pre-soak the seed. For others, though, you have to cut through the seed coat with a knife or sandpaper or a nail file. And, for a few, pre-soaking them in a specific form of acid is the preferred way to break through that seed coat.

Some flowers are exceptionally easy to start from seed, including zinnias, cosmos, salvias, nasturiums, sunflowers, salvias, black-eyed Susan vine, cypress vine, morning glories, cardinal climber vine, Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia), celosias, globe amaranth and hollyhocks.

There are some seeds that do best when direct-sown, mostly because they dislike being transplanted OR need alternating periods of cold and hot temperatures to induce germination. These include poppies, Calfornia poppies, larkspur and most wildflowers.

This year I have started many flowers from seed and most of these plants are either already in the ground or are being transplanted into the ground this week. These include "Queeny Purple", "Queeny Mix", "Summer Carnival" and "Old-Fashioned Single" hollyhocks, agastache, "Red Shield" Hibiscus, Dahlia "Bishop's Children", "Summer Pastels" and "Summer Berries" yarrow, Salvia "Whopper Lighthouse", and several other red-flower salvias (for the hummers) whose varieties I don't remember, rose mallow, gazania daisies, QIS mix globe amaranth, "Caribbean Crush" and "Caribbean Cocktail" nasturtiums, cassia alata, butterfly weed, ipomopsis, ipomoea palmata, a red-flowered Texas Bluebonnet called "Alamo Fire", the heat-loving "Laura Bush" and "Laura Bush Pink" petunias, and several kinds of daturas, including white-flowered single and double flowered ones, double yellow, double lavender and a single pink one that I think is not actually a datura but a brugmansia. There are probably others but I can't think of them at the moment.

I still need to start others from seed, probably this week or next--zinnias, cosmos, Mexican sunflowers, morning glories, moonvine, purple hyacinth bean vine, and some plants that are grown for their foliage, like striped ornamental corn and castor beans.

I keep raising flowers from seed and transplanting them outside over a long period of time. I usually get the last ones in the ground just before Memorial Day. (When you grow as many as I do, it can take a long time to get them all "done" and in the ground.)

A lot of the flowers I have grown to transplant outside this year are either perennials or self-sowing annuals that reseed very reliably. I have grown a lot more than usual this year because the last 3 years have been hard on my exising flowers.....last year's rainy weather got a lot of them, and prior to that, the 2 years of severe drought were hard on them....so I have planted tons of stuff to revitalize several beds.

Some flowers reseed so reliably, like poppies, larkspur, verbena bonariensis, daura metel and 4 o'clocks, that once you have them, you'll have them forever. Some herbs--chamomile is one that comes to mind and chives is another--reseed so freely they can become "weedy".

As you can tell, I love raising flowers from seed--I just don't talk about them as much as I talk about veggies--because each one is different from the others--and I'd have to write forever to discuss each one's unique germination needs and growing methods.

Sometimes you have to start your own from seed to have them at the right planting time in our climate. For me, this is especially true of cool-season flowers that I can start from seed in the summer and transplant into the ground in late summer for fall and winter blooms. This includes pansies, snapdragons and ornamental cabbage and kale. And, sometimes, you have to start your own flowers from seed in order to get something that is regionally adapted, weather-wise, and which is shunned by the nursery industry in general. The "Laura Bush" petunia varieties fall into this category. They are heat-loving varieties that often bloom, on and off, all summer long. They outlast the more commonly grown Wave petunias by a mile. Yet, they are almost impossible to find. So, I grow my own.

I think it can be much harder to start flowers from seed, as opposed to how easy it is to start veggies. It has been trial-and-error for me over a couple of decades. I love doing it, though, as it gives me many flowers you can't even find as transplants.

Do I still buy transplants? A few. When we bought our first home in Texas in 1984, I planted virtually everything from purchased transplants. Nowadays, it is the opposite--I grow almost everything from seed, but it took me a long time to get from buying all my flower transplants to growing them instead, and it evolved from my desire to have flowers I couldn't find as transplants. If, for example, you want to grow cosmos from transplants, you'll usually only find a limited number of varieties as transplants--Sonata and Double Click are two that come to mind. Last year, I purchased a Cosmos collection from Wildseed Farms that had 16 packets of different cosmos varieties in it. So, that's one example of how growing your own from seed gives you more options. Zinnias are the same way. There must be 40 to 50 types of zinnias you can grow from seed, but when you purchase transplants, you are limited to less than a double different varieties.

If you have questions about specific varieties, let me know, and I'll try to answer them.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn
I have many books so I probably have info on each one but what I needed was the encouragement to know that people really did it and that it was worthwhile. I am very late this year, but I already have a lot of seed so I guess it is worth a try. Thanks for the info.

It is raining hard here this morning and it looks like the largest part of the cell is still to come. My garden planting date keeps getting later and later, but my container garden is getting larger. LOL

With the help of my husband, I got two batches of container mix done yesterday and a few things planted. I still have a garbage can full of mix to work with so sounds like more pots. LOL By the time I can work my garden, I might just need to plant beans and okra. LOL I am still holding a lot of tomato plants for the garden, but I sure would like to get them in now. Happy gardening. Carol

Carol,

I feel just terrible for those of you whose ground is still too wet to plant.....and more rain keeps falling!

I know it happened last year to so many of us, and it drove us all nuts. I just can't believe it is happening in parts of Oklahoma again this year.

Last year I had so many plants in containers that never made it into the ground. (sigh) It was a good learning experience, in once sense, as I learned that many veggies, most notably peppers, grow and produce better in contaners than I would have thought. On the other hand, I lost lots of plants in my red clay soil that couldn't handle the prolonged moisture.

We really haven't had much rain here the last 2 weeks or so, which is fine with me, as I have been able to get a lot of planting done. My soil moisture levels are still pretty high....the top couple of inches of soil in the raised beds are dry, but beneath that there is a lot of moisture.

We do have at least some chance of rain in the forecast for the next 5 days, so I'd better get a lot done today while the soil is workable.

Dawn

Well the heavy rain didn't last very long but of course everything is wet. I guess I am lucky that I have seven tomato plants in my garden already. I have those fivc that I had in WOW for my experiment and they are all still alive. I hope that I can get them hardened off without a problem because they have been totally out of the wind. For the first time, I planted my sugar snaps inside and then transplanted them to the garden and they are looking good. I didn't have quite enough to go to the end of the 16' cattle panel so I had put one Opalka tomato and one cherry at the end of the panel before our last freeze. They made it through the freeze OK but the rain has taken a toll on them. They will probably be OK but look a little wimpy right now.

I never plant bush beans because I have had a broken back and have 9 inches of steel in my back so I can't bend down to do much and I bend only from the hips, not the waist. Bush beans are just too hard for me to pick unless I get on the ground. In Grove, the ground stays wet for a lot of spring and I don't want to crawl around in the mud. I bought a pack of yellow wax beans this week and I think I will start a few in a large pot. I have never done that, but at least I could pick them without being on the ground.

Instead of pole beans I decided to go with yard longs this year and I understand that they need to be planted a little later anyway.

Peppers do well in my garden but I have put a lot in pots. I have another dozen or so ready to go in the ground now but they may go in pots also because I have some others that are just starting their first leaves now that I planted quite late. I was ordering my "Big Bite" tomato seeds and just couldn't resist buying a few other things. LOL I don't have my first peppers in very big pots so I hope they will be OK.

I stopped writing this msg and went into my garden and removed the WOW since the next few days are supposed to be cloudy it seemed like a good time. I could walk around without sinking so that is a good sign. It is too wet to plant much but I think by afternoon I can go pull some weeds and maybe do a little maintenance. I guess this is the reason that I always try to push the season during those early spring warm spells because we tend to get a lot of spring rain here. It would be a good place for raised bed gardening, but the soil is so great here that I hate to resort to that.

As I have said before, I have never planted veggies in containers before this year, but this year I am trying a little bit of everything. I had started a few things inside that I normally direct seed. Since they can't go in the ground easily I am just putting them in pots. It may have some advantages for a few things because I tend to have squash bugs pretty bad. It will be a lot easier to keep the squash covered in a pot than it is with a row cover in the garden. I am not going to cut up my row covers but I have lots of sheer curtain fabric that I don't have a need for. I am visualizing a big round circle with elastic around the edge. It can just droop down now, but "grow" with the plant. I am laughing as I write this because I am remembering what my grandmother used to cover bowls, before Tupperware. It was like a shower cap for a bowl. I think I could make them for squash.

I had already decided that I was going to plant eggplant in containers because of flea beetles. Someone on line said that if you grew them a few feet above ground that you wouldn't get an attack. I don't understand that, but I will try anything once. I am not quite sure how I am going to elevate those pots, but I will come up with something. Squash bugs, flea beetles and potato bugs are my only real pests. I have never had a tomato horn worm in my garden here. (No Susan, I will not encourage them.)

Just a typical garden year in Oklahoma.....flexibility is the only way. LOL

Carol,

I'm glad you could walk in your garden without sinking down into the mud up to your ankles! It probably is a good time to remove the WOWs, and I am moving my peppers from the back porch to outside to harden off under the milder, cloudy skies. For that reason, I hope it is mostly cloudy all week....and I think I may get that wish fulfilled.

I remember those little bowl covers that used to look like shower caps! My grandmother and some of my aunts used them as well. What a memory!

Do you have flea beetles all the time or only in early spring? For me, they are only a pest on the earliest plantings.....like those that are set out in late March through late April. Here, they are a short-lived pest, and do a little damage to lower leaves, and then they are gone. So, I just ignore that early damage, the plants outlive it and it doesn't happen any more.

In general, I have noticed that container plantings have less pests, and I do think the main reason is that the planting are elevated above the standard grade of the soil so soil-dwelling pests can't reach them easily. One more reason to grow in containers!

Dawn

Actually Dawn, I am so ignorant about pests that I didn't realize that I had flea beetles until my eggplant leaves began to look like lace and someone told me that is what had eaten them. The next year I tried something different and had planned to keep them covered for the early growing period, but then I broke my foot and didn't do anything in my garden. It is possible that they are only a problem in the spring. I just don't know. However, I would rather lose the plant than use a pestiside so it may be impossible for me to grow them. I also ordered a different variety this year and my transplants will be late, so maybe both of those things will help.

I planted about a dozen peppers in my garden today. It was very wet, but I could move around in it OK. I had the area already prepared, so I just took a little bulb planting hand shovel and dug a hole big enough to slide the pepper transplant in (16 ounce cup size). I couldn't do that if it was clay, but it is good soil so I don't think I will have a dirt clod problem. They were beginning to look a little yellow, so it was time to put them somewhere. The same peppers that had already been potted into containers looked so much better.

Most of the transplants that were ready for the garden have now either been put into containers or into the garden or will be today (except for 10,000 tomato plants). I will pot up a few more toms today and maybe get a few in the garden as well. I think transplants will be OK but seeds could rot. Maybe not, but since I had to plant beans three times last year and cucumbers twice because of heavy rain and wet soil, I will just wait a few days before I put them in. I learn a little more each year about gardening in this climate. It is a bit of a problem now, but when you guys are dry we will probably be getting rain, so each of us has to adjust. LOL

Did I say something on this thread about hornworms, or do you all just know me so well. A lot of people have been encouraged to plant extras for the hornworms. The adult moths are great pollinators for flowers with deep throats, such as daturas, brugs, nicotianas, moonflowers, even squash. But if you want to kill them, be my guest!

Susan

No Susan, You didn't say anything about hornworms on this thread but I have read about your "wild" back yard.
I am sure that some people have hornworms, but I have never had any in this garden. I have to admit that I am not too smart about some of these things however. Once when I lived in Carter County, I planted dill. It was only a couple of inches high and I went out to find it covered with about a dozen caterpillars. I quickly picked them off and destroyed them. I learned later that I had killed off the butterfly population. I am a little smarter now, but only a little.