Here are 10 flowers that are among the easiest to grow from seed. You can grow a lovely flower garden simply by directly sowing the seeds.
Perennial flowers grown from seed might not bloom during their first growing season, so it’s important to have a little patience with them.
Marigold
Marigolds have become somewhat ubiquitous meaning they are very easy to grow. In modern western culture, marigolds symbolize positive emotions and energy. We associate the flowers’ fiery yellow, orange, and red hues with the warmth of the Sun, happiness, joy, optimism, and good luck. Yet, marigolds sometimes symbolize darker emotions such as jealousy, grief, despair, and mourning.
Their large seeds are easy to handle, and they are reliable growers. You’ll have to plant marigold seeds each year because they’re annuals. But they’ll bloom all summer if you keep them deadheaded. If you live in a hot climate, give your plants some afternoon shade, and keep the soil evenly moist. It takes around four to 12 days to germinate and 60 to 70 days to bloom.
Marigolds are top-selling flowers in Hindu weddings because they represent the sun, symbolizing brightness and positive energy. They are also associated with Lord Vishnu and Goddess Lakshmi, who are considered an ideal couple in Hindu mythology.
Calendula
Calendula or pot marigold, is another lover of cool temperatures. Calendula oil has antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and antibacterial properties that might make it useful in healing wounds, soothing eczema, and relieving diaper rash. It’s also used as an antiseptic.
In the short term, the nourishing benefits of calendula help to plump the surface of your skin to give you tighter, more supple skin almost instantly. In the long term, both the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties help to protect your precious collagen and elastin supply.
These flowers are not related to common marigolds, though they are often yellow or orange and look vaguely similar. The flowers are edible with a citrus-like flavor. Older varieties are single flowered, but now there also are frilly double-flowered varieties. The singles seem to reseed more readily but not to the point of being a nuisance.
Read More: Monsoon Season: Vegetables You Can Grow At Home
They take approximately 10 days to germinate and 45 to bloom.If you live in a hot climate, give your plants some afternoon sun protection, and keep the soil moderately moist. Also, remove spent flowers to encourage further blooming.
Morning Glory
To farmers and home gardeners, Morning Glories are sometimes considered a pest. One species, Ipomoea aquatica, is classified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a noxious weed. Consequently, in the U.S. it is unlawful to import, grow, sell or possess it without a permit.
If you’re seeking a fast-growing vine, look no further than morning glories. This flower doesn’t transplant well, so seeds should be directly sown in your garden after your last frost date. This vine is often grown on trellises or arbors. It is an annual, and when started from seed it can take until the end of summer to bloom. The seeds have a hard outer covering that germinates faster and if they are soaked in water overnight. Germination can take around 10 days.
Morning glories are late bloomers, often not flowering for around 100 days after they’re planted. Some people refer to them as back-to-school flowers because they bloom in August.
Once the plant is established in your garden, it will self-seed and come back on its own year after year. Water your plant around once a week to ensure even moisture, and use a low-nitrogen fertilizer monthly or as needed during the growing season.
Cosmos
Blooming throughout the summer months, they attract birds, bees, and butterflies to your garden. Cosmos make good cut flowers for bouquets, and they bloom all summer long. They’re annuals but typically will self-seed. They’ll even tolerate poor soil, so they’re truly low-fuss flowers. To harvest more seeds, remember to leave a few flowers on the plant. They take between three and 10 days to germinate and 70 to 84 days to bloom.
Cosmos are quintessential cottage garden flowers and make themselves useful when scattered in the vegetable garden to attract pollinators.
Bachelor’s Button
These summer blooming plants need full sun as well as moist and well drained soil. These beautiful flowers are loved by butterflies and attract pollins. Their sowing can be executed in late spring or early fall. They need very little care as once they are grown they can also survive drought. The average distance between seeds should be 20-30 cm. Bachelor buttons are one of the longest flowering spring annuals as well, blooming for around ten weeks before petering out (although our first summer growing we actually harvested all the way through November!)
Nasturtium
These lovely plants, with their unique greenery and vibrant flowers, grow well in containers or as ground cover around vegetable gardens. In fact, they are often used as a trap crop. The nasturtium is a cheerful and easy-to-grow flower! Their bold blooms and edible leaves, flowers, and seed pods make them an especially fun flower for kids to plant and a favorite companion plant in the garden.
There are many varieties of nasturtiums, which are divided into two main types: trailing or climbing types (Tropaeolum majus) and bush types (T. minus). As their names suggest, the main difference between them is their growth habit, with trailing nasturtiums forming long vines and bush nasturtiums remaining more compact.
They germinate quickly, grow quickly too, and the flamboyant flowers are large and colourful. But while the familiar nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) is an annual, it can also be grown from cuttings.
Moss Rose
Moss rose, Portulaca grandiflora, is a drought and heat tolerant annual, native to hot, dry plains in Argentina, southern Brazil, and Uruguay. This herbaceous plant in the purslane family (Portulacaceae) is cultivated throughout the world as a garden annual for its showy flowers that bloom all summer long with little care. In the ornamental industry moss rose may be listed as P. oleracea, P. umbraticola or P. grandiflora, but many cultivars are likely hybrids.
Flowers come in white and a wide range of warm colors, including pink, peach, yellow, orange, red, fuchsia, magenta, lavender and purple. Newer cultivars and hybrids offer a greater range of shades than in the species, and some are striped or spotted with contrasting colors.
Moss Rose plants are grown from seeds. Moss Rose is easy to grow. This prefers average to poor, loose, sandy or loam soil. A well draining composition is important. Moss Rose seeds can be directly seeded into your flower garden, or seeded indoors for transplanting later. Seeds germination period, requires one to two weeks. Moss Rose grows just four to six inches tall. Place it in the front of your flower garden. Try planting Moss Rose as border edging, in rock gardens as bedding plants or ground cover. They also look good in containers and hanging pots. They’ll be forgiving when you forget to water them.
Sunflower
Sunflowers symbolize worship and faithfulness in various religions because of their resemblance to the sun and the desire to seek light and truth.
Sunflowers are famous for their tall stems, bright, yellow blooms. Aside from the flower’s beauty, its seeds are highly nutritious. Although sunflowers grow best in full sun, they’re a tough plant and can withstand dry climates and most soil types.
Sunflowers are iconic, easy-to-grow plants enjoyed by gardeners in every state. One of the easiest flowers to grow, Helianthus thrive in full sun and aren’t picky about soil. But there are many other types of sunflowers to explore.
Love-in-a-mist
Love-in-a-mist (Nigella Damascena) is a reliable annual that’s on my must-grow list and should be on yours. In the spring, you can sow them and start your obsession. Growing Nigella in the garden, offers an interesting, peek-a-boo flower to be glimpsed through showy bracts. Care of love in a mistflower is easy, and its interesting blooms are well worth the effort.
They will demand proper sunlight and the soil moist until sprouts appear in from two to three weeks. Love-in-a-mist will grow the most flowers in full sun, but it will do fine in partial shade. It will grow and bloom best in nutrient-rich, fertile soil. The best thing is that you just have to water it one to two times in a week during the dry period, then you can check the moisture of the soil.
Love in the Mist belongs to Ranunculales, the same plant family as the ‘Buttercup’. The flowers bloom in a variety of colours including white, pink and purple but it mainly blooms in different shades of blue. … If any of the plant is ingested, it can cause serious illness and may even cause death.
California Poppies
The golden poppy became the official, designated state flower of California, in 1890. So it is, botanically, a ‘true poppy’, a member of the Papaveraceae family and it shares the growth habits and active principles with its cousins.It is drought-tolerant, self-seeding, and easy to cultivate. Sow the seeds early in spring, or if your winters are mild, in fall. The petals close at night (or in cold, windy weather) and open again the following morning, although they may remain closed in cloudy weather.
Conversely, a Doctors Foster and Smith website lists the California poppy as poisonous to dogs. … Members of the Papaver bunch contain poisonous alkaloids as well as morphine.
An interesting fact about the California Poppy is that if you pick one, you could be prosecuted with a fine up to $1,000 (approx. ₹73000) and even 6 months in jail. It’s also illegal to harm plants on other people’s property unless you get permission. That means one of the few places you can pick poppies without worry is in your own backyard.
– Radha Agrawal
Pingback: Monsoon Season: Vegetables You Can Grow At Home – Articles daily