Sow biennials now to enjoy a superb display next year from some of our all-time favourite garden flowers. Biennials spend their first year making big clumps of foliage before flowering in their second year – so you need to be ahead of the game and sow your seeds now to benefit.
Biennials include lots of must-haves for the cottage garden, such as pretty perfumed wallflowers, forget-me-nots and sweet williams. Add the dramatic spires of foxgloves, hollyhocks and sweet rocket for a garden full of colour next May and June.
You'll find dozens of different varieties of seed on sale here at our garden centre in Hereford as well as all the equipment you need to get started. You can sow biennials direct into shallow seed drills in well-prepared soil, thinning to a spacing of 10-15cm between seedlings. Or sow into 5cm modules filled with good-quality John Innes seed compost and pot on as they grow.
By September you should have sturdy young plants to transplant into their final growing spaces in plenty of time to put down good strong roots for winter. They're then ready and waiting to burst into bloom in late spring, flooding your garden with colour and perfume just when you need it the most.
