IT'S not every gardener who can enjoy the advantages of a greenhouse. As well as the obvious summer crops of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, t
he greenhouse is also invaluable in the spring for raising bedding plants.
Starting them off under glass early on either as seeds or plugs gives summer flowers a great advantage over having to provide colour by sowing seeds outdoors direct where they are to flower.
But, if no greenhouse is available, either plants have to be bought in trays of six from garden centres and other outlets (a little costly if one requires a good number), or grow them from seed. For the latter you want the easy-to-grow types – it's no good trying begonias, busy lizzies or petunias!
Calendulas, some people call them pot marigolds, or just plain marigolds, are and always have been, flowers known and chosen by people as being easy to grow and with more or less 100 per cent success.
When Thompson & Morgan research new plants, they consider how easy the seeds are to sow and germinate, how quick and easy they are to grow and, importantly, whether they offer prolonged garden performance with a minimum of maintenance in order to give their customers the satisfaction they have come to expect.
For 2010, T & M introduce Calendula Apricot Twist. Compact and bushy plants become quickly smothered in stunning, fully double, apricot-coloured flowers, and with its dwarf habit (25cm/1 D in), is perfect for planting at the front of a border or in a patio pot.
At just £1.49 for 100 seeds that's great value for money and just one seed will produce a good-sized, bushy plant.
Equally well-known as an easy-to-grow, direct-sown summer annual is nigella, probably better known as Love-in-a-Mist. While traditionally in shades of blue, T & M's introduction called Mulberry Rose comes as spectacular double blooms in a wonderful range of rose-pink and white bicolour shades.
These impressive flowers are superb in drifts in borders and growing 55cm/22in are the ideal cut flower for the home.
Once the flowers have faded, attractive seed pods which many people use in autumnal dried flower arrangements. At 99p for 600 seeds there should be plenty of colour.
