Perennials (flowers) via Mail Order or by seed...

[mat]

I have a new garden... had the place a year now and decided what i like and what is "weed"... and there's an awful lot of clearance required... However in some of the areas I cleared last year I'd like to create perennial borders (in addition to the vegetable/fruit area)

1) Have you had any places you'd recommend (or otherwise) for perennial mail order plants? I did a search but the only link I could find was very negative over mail order plants... (e.g. Tim's were dreadful...)  I could go to nurseries/garden centres but prices are generally very high for anything other than the odd plant! and although I have searched out nurseries (and driven many miles) for special plants in the past, I am not sure I could afford to fill the borders this way (friends and family don't have herbacious perennials!)

2) secondly.. Looking on the Chiltern Seed site, many I can get via seed - are hardy perennials easy to germinate and start off? (I don;t have a greenhouse yet, as that area of the garden still needs to be cleared...) Some of items I'd like to try as seed (and I don;t know whether are easy to grow) are as follows

hizostylis 'Vibrant Scarlet'
Berkheya purpurea 'Zulu Warrior'
Salpiglossis sinuata True Wild Form
Astrantia - various
Buphthalmum speciosum
Catananche caerulea var. alba
Centaurea americana 'Aloha Blanca'
Centaurea montana
Dianthus knappii 'Yellow Harmony'
Dicentra macrocapnos
Dipsacus fullonum
Doronicum caucasicum 'Finesse'
Eryngium alpinum 'Superbum'
Leontopodium alpinum
Luzula nivea
Phygelius capensis
Physalis franchetii
Sidalcea 'Party Girl'
Thalictrum aquilegiifolium hybridum
Alonsoa warscewiczii
Cirsium japonicum 'Early Pink Beauty'
Cleome serrulata 'Solo'
Monarda didyma 'Panorama Red Shades'
Helianthus annuus 'Earthwalker'


This is relatively new to me - I am fairly experienced with vegetables, but not with flowers!  Advice very gratefully received

Thanks in advance
mat

[mat]

[grannyjanny]

Hi Mat. What about car boot sales. They sometimes have plants. Parkers bulbs do a collection of perennials but not got a good name for plants, OK for bulbs I believe. There are some perennials grown from seed that flower in their first year & I think there is a pkt of mixed seeds but I can't remember which company does them.
Janet.

[tonybloke]

without a greenhouse......................... ? ?
buy SMALL plants, they'll grow!! ( and prob cost about the same as a pkt of seed)
one of each, grow on and propagate as neccessary. ;)

[campanula]

the cheapest way of filling a big area is to grow from seed. Some perennials will flower in their first year - I have grown gaillardia, gaura, delphinium, erigeron karvinskianus, dahlia,verbena bonariensis, digitalis, coreopsis, lobelia, verbascum, althea cannabina (I am loving this mallow), scabious, millium. Also, you can go for soft cuttings or semi-ripe - salvias, penstemons, asters, pinks....the list goes on. Finally, you can throw a few annuals - I am liking omphalodes linifolia, red flax, phacelia campaniflora, californian poppies - thyey will seed around so you will always have them.
I sow perennials at various times and usually, if sown before midsummer, they have enough growth to sit through a winter in pots in the lee of the coldframes. Campanulas are easy and charming, as are echinacea, rudbeckia and several grasses. Have fun, you will fill all your space faster then you thought possible.
cheers, suzy

[ACE]

Plug plants are good but you need a friend to share with as the orders have to be at least 30 of each to make them cheap enough. Local plant sales are good as a lot  perrenials are splittable, speak to neighbours as well (a decent geranium can make a dozen plants). But seeds and patience is really the only way. Plant in big drifts this year with plants that have a long flowering periods. Then next year you have loads of swaps.

Plant swap/meets are starting to happen a lot now, you only need an empty car park or a village green to organise one. You will be surprised at the people that turn up.

[caroline7758]

Mat, asyou are near York, have you tried Stillingfleet Lodge or Millford Plants? These are not mail order but good places growing their own plants:

http://www.millfordplants.co.uk/

http://www.stillingfleetlodgenurseries.co.uk/index.htm

The best place usedto be Mill Farm at South Millford where they did 25 plants for 15 pounds but last I heard they were putting all their efforts into their teashop and the plants had gone downhill.

I've also had some good stuff from ebay.

[mat]

Brilliant, thanks Caroline for these recommendations.  I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to get recommendations for garden centres/nurseries

mat

[millfarm]

hi,
no argument... but saw the comment on us and just felt we should stand our ground in that we still offer ( its actually ) 20 perennials for £15 .. and overall our plants have got better since we started doing the larger pots - so that the perennials fill them to enable the buyer to split them up .. and I'd say our selection last year was the biggest and best we've ever had ... its just that because of the last 2 bad years growing weather they tend not to look so 'bright' in the pot .. as we must be one of the few remaining nurseries to grow every plant ourselves, whether it be seed, split or cutting .. and we only cold grow so there are no pretty flowers or overfed leaves .. these are real plants for real gardeners and thats what we built our reputation on ... not selling stylised eye candy for the once a year wannabe gardener !
The plants that are remerging now from last years stock are choc a bloc full of shoots and roots and probably the best we've ever had ...
yes our only way of surviving the natural downturn of trade over the past few years was to open the tea garden  .. but our passion has always been for real, back to basics gardening and thats what we'll stick to !

best of luck with this years gardening .. I think its going to be a better one for all of us.

[Tee Gee]

Use the alphabetical index here and you wil find cultural notes on many of your selection; http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Indexes/index.htm

BTW I think you have made a typing error with the first one on your list!

hizostylis should read shizostylis ( i think  ??? )

[PurpleHeather]

My dear old mum used to go for a walk around at dusk and if she saw a plant she liked she would nick a cutting from it, put it in her pocket take it home, pot it up and plant it out if it took.

She had a lovely garden. Full of all sorts.

I get seeds, lavender and dahlias are simple to grow that way.

If you have pots of money to spend then an instant garden is easy to make but if not, buy the smallest plants which are often cheapest and put them in leaving huge gaps. Then buy some of those packs of mixed annuals and scatter them in between. That way you wont get one of those gardens which are all gaps. The new little plants will soon spread.

Make sure that you can identify perennial weeds too. Buttercups, dandylions stinging nettles and docks need to be rooted out as soon as you notice them.