It's the start of a new year and with it comes the incomparable excitement and anticipation of the green shoots of Spring arriving. I always find there is a bit of a lull in my world of gardening around November/December time, where besides shovelling horse poo and compost and fixing up all the things that need repairing on the plot and the garden, there isn’t a huge amount of growth happening. Particularly because last year I missed the autumn sowing gap, with a big creative project taking up oodles of my time last year, I missed out on many of those important jobs.

With all the fuss (and stress) of Christmas out of the way and a slightly lighter work schedule than I would have liked this January, I’ve been making an effort to make good use of that time. The greenhouse heater is on and many seeds have been sown. The seeds I sowed in January of last year were some of my most successful harvests of dried flowers and so I’m forging ahead with getting those sown again and with the temperatures as mild as they are, it feels like we could be planting out in the garden before too long.

I often get asked for recommendations on plants to grow for drying and the best time to sow seeds, amongst many other questions relating to everlastings, so once a month i’ll be updating my blog with details of the seeds I’ve been sowing, potting on, planting out and eventually harvesting. A dried flower diary of sorts, that I hope will prove useful and interesting for you, my dear readers.

The violas and pansies for pressing are growing well

January

Despite the rain and the odd cold snap this January, I’ve spent a lot of time in the garden and on the allotment. Hours spent working on the land now will reap huge benefits later in the year. I’ve treated my garden to a topping of Gold Compost as I move to the no dig method as much as I can. The beds are luscious looking mounds of rich dark soil and I know the plants are grateful for this. On the plot, Ed and myself have spent many hours together shifting the set up we have, perhaps a post of another time, but after 10 years of owning a plot with varying degrees of success we have decided to change the way we manage that piece of land. It's been a lot of work up front and has involved shifting a lot of horse manure but the hope is that it will reduce our workload later on in the year allowing us more time to enjoy growing and harvesting, watch this space!

Sowings

All my seeds are being sown in my greenhouse which is kept ever so slightly warm with an electric heater (one of my best investments). On sunny days, I open the door ever so slightly to let fresh air flow in and I conduct frequent snail checks just in case.

I use a mix of seed sowing compost, potting on compost and vermicelli to grow my seeds in, I find seed sowing soil can be quite fine and tends to clog which is why I mix the two composts together. I always by peat free, organic compost. I am by no means plastic free yet and will continue to reuse my plastic plant pots until they die a death as I firmly believe that reusing plastic is the key to its success.

I’ve written all about the trend in dried flowers on a blog post here, where i have also listed out some of my favourite seed suppliers for dried flower seeds, from which all the seeds below have been purchased:

For Drying

Scabious Stella Ping Pong - quite early to sow but i have oodles so wanted to give it a go and see how it fairs with an early sowing. Beautiful seedheads

Scarlet, Salmon Rose, White, Silvery Rose Strawflowers - sowing these seeds in January last year was so successful and I’m wanting to squeeze as many sowings in as possible this year. The range of colours these blooms come in now is staggering, I have gone for soft muted tones this year

Echinops Ritro - big blue globes of deliciousness! I have one established plant at the plot and I’m to introduce another in my garden

Eryngium white and blue - I used these a lot in my winter displays and wreaths last year so wanted to have a go at growing my own. Very few seeds in the packet which always worries me - I feel the risk of failure is much higher!

Bergamot Oswego Tea - this is a new one to me and came recommended by a friend. I am keen to see how the flowers dry but also the structural spire seedheads. So good for the bees and butterflies too

Bupleurum Longifolium - A bronze version, how will it dry? I can’t wait to find out!

Helichrysum thianshanicum “golden baby” - Another first for me, I adore yellow and golden flowers (I know I know, I’m on my own there!) and hope this will add beautiful colour to my autumn displays

Catananche Caerulea - discovered in my husband's uncles garden during the summer, its silvery brackets and paperly petals had me dreaming of growing it, this one I am super excited about!

Just a weeks difference in these two images, growth of sweet peas in January

For Pressing

Antique sweet peas

Vintage violas and pansies

Both of these cut and come again blooms, which germinated early January, will provide me with plenty of pressing fodder for the summer. The joy of seeing those long sturdy shoots of sweet peas popping up is something else isn’t it?

The diary of a dried flower garden: January

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