16 Perennial flowers you should grow from seeds. This is why!

For those of you who love flowers and gardening, I'm going to tell you about a very intriguing way to get more and newer varieties of flowering pre-annual plants for your garden. Pre-annual or bi-annual flowers can save you time and money, but buying mature pre-annual flowers from garden sensors can be very expensive. Although from my experience, growing annual plants from seeds and collecting your own seeds each year is really easy and can also save you a lot of money. And we do have a video on our channel about the 15 best annual flowers that you can grow from seeds, so please check the link out below. But is it the same with pre-annuals? I started to browse flower seed catalogs for seed availability and I studied if these plants that I'm choosing will feel good in my garden. This video I'm making for you, I'm going to share my true experience with all my successes and failures. Now after two months of waiting, I finally received the seeds from the seed supplier and I planted all my seeds one by one in long trays using mixed potting soil with slow-release fertilizer. I didn't use any heating pads or any additional lighting, I just placed the trays on the windowsill southwest and waited. I planted Physocegia, or the common name is obedience plant. I have never seen the mature plant being sold in local garden centers, but online the flowers, the images of these flowers looks very attractive. The seeds are around $5.25 Canadian just for 20 to 25 seeds. These seeds can be planted directly into the soil in late fall, planting just below the surface of the soil. The seed can also be started indoors six to eight weeks before planting them in the spring. Around 60% of my seeds sprouted and they were easy to take care of. All of them I transplanted in May outside where they started to grow really fast. This plant grows well in clay soil and especially moist or fertile soil. The stems may need support or stocking. Crystal peak white variety won its rewards for blooming in the first year and for being compact, so I can't wait. Another very attractive variety but not very commonly found in garden centers is the variety of Ingush daisies or Bellus perennis. This plant likes sun with afternoon shade and it prefers cool temperatures as well as cool moist fertile soil. Ingush daisies often escape from the flower gardens onto lawns where they're considered a weed. This plant declines with summer heat and is not drought tolerant. This plant seasons are spring to early summer with sporadic flowering till frost and this plant may be challenging to stop growing if grown in an ideal location. Ingush daisies like heavy fertility and this plant reaches a mature height in a maximum of five years. Ingush daisies are slow to start but then they grow rapidly and can become weedy. These plants have very tiny seeds and are promised to bloom in the first year and can often re-bloom in late summer. The next one is the popular Shasta daisy hybrid. The seeds are easy to find in any big box stores or garden centers. You can get around 200 coated for fast germination for around three to four dollars. Indeed these seeds sprouted within 10 days at about a hundred percent germination rate and grew noticeably stronger and faster than other seeds. Shasta daisies has large often glistening pure white flowers with a buttery yellow center and they're an easy to take care of for hardy perennial. You can grow them from seeds and it's absolutely possible even for someone without any gardening experience to grow these successfully. Directly sow the seeds outdoors after the danger of the frost has passed and the soil begins to warm. They can also be started indoors if you prefer. Plant the Shasta daisies in year one and they will bloom in the second and each following year. As many perennial flowers, if planted in spring, they start blooming only in the second year and that is a big disadvantage especially if I need only a few flowering plants. But considering the cost of mature plants in gardening centers and you compare that to the cost of the work and the seeds, especially if I need to plant lots of flowers, I would prefer to grow them from seeds. Besides for heirloom varieties I can stock up with my own seed supply. And the next one is foxglove flowers or Digitalis purpurea. They are hardy biannuals that can bloom possibly in the first year if started indoors in January February. Otherwise the flowers will appear in the second year. Germination rate of my seeds was approximately 30 percent. The foxgloves sprouted within two weeks. The seedlings look very delicate and I have to spray them with a spray bottle to water them. Beautiful flowers but the seeds and the plant itself is very toxic for small kids, cats and dogs. The next one is delphinium. The seed packaging promises that the flowers will bloom best first year if started indoors in early spring and grown at 18 degrees celsius until planted in the garden. Sprouting rate is about 70 percent. I lost a few seedlings due to over watering. It looks like when I planted it in the garden they started to grow pretty fast so maybe they will bloom by the end of summer. Delphinium is toxic to humans and to livestock. The common name is larkspur and it is a very eye-catching flower and it helps create this luxurious display in any flowering garden. The next one is lupine. There are also annual cultivars so make sure to buy pre-annuals. My seeds sprouted within 45 days even without pre-soaking. Lupines grow wild in North America where they are hosts for the larvae of endangered species of butterflies. Add this tall showy bloom to an area where lupine flowers will be visible and act as a background for other full sun blooms. These plants do not require a lot of care. Give them a sunny spot, ample water, and well-drained soil and you will be hearing ooh ah for seasons to come. Another upright beautiful pre-annual are hollyhock or alcea rosea. I was attracted by the chatter's double mixed hollyhock seeds and decided to give them a try. They are bi-annuals or short lived pre-annuals. The seeds sprouted very fast at a good rate. The plant should bulk up in the first season and then explode into this bloom in late spring or summer of the second year. Cut back after bloom the plants will flower again in late summer and fall. The seeds are allowed to mature near the end of the season and will often self-sow giving you the feeling that you're growing these long living pre-annual flowers. But watch out for slugs. They can eat the entire young hollyhock seedlings. The hollyhock can grow up to eight feet tall. So I guess I have enough tall upright flowers. Let's see what I can grow as a border flower. The next we have is the true forget-me-not flower, myosotis scorpioides, which grows on hairy stems. Seeds are very tiny and the sprouting rate was upsetting. From the whole seed package I could grow only two decent seedlings. They picked up growth when I planted them outside. Normally when forget-me-not will establish I don't need to worry about propagation anymore because after that they are self-seeding plants. Please note that forgetting knots are invasive in some areas. Otherwise the plants will spread by creeping rhizomes but they are not overly aggressive. They prefer wet to moist conditions in full to partial sun and they can also tolerate cold conditions. The next one I want to try growing from seeds is armiria. The package promised me that it'll bloom in the first year. Potted plants at garden centers are around $15 but from only $2.95 a bag of seeds I could grow only about five to six decent seedlings. Of course they began catching up once I planted them outside so we shall see. It is a compact evergreen perennial which grows in low clumps and sends up long stems that support globes of these bright pink flowers. What really makes them attractive to me is that armiria can successfully grow near salted roadsides. From experience not so many plants can tolerate salty conditions but armiria's natural habitat is coastal rocks and sandy areas. After long Canadian winters and the heavy use of road salt I have places where nothing really grows so yeah I'm going to try to put armiria in those spots. Another similar looking flower is achillea marshmallow or achillea ptarmiga or more commonly known as yarrow. I prefer yarrow when I see it in the wild and I collect them. I dry them and I use it as a medicinal herbal tea. I do enjoy the smell of these flowers so I thought why not give it a try. I managed to grow a few plants from approximately 20 seeds pellets without any problems. I think they are very cute to grow as border flowers with small fluffy flowers all season long. This variety is improved in amounts of double flowers and compact habit. It also has an attractive dark green foliage. Another good flowering plant for containers or the edge of your garden is coreopsis. Of course I can buy the small young plant at any box store at the beginning of the season but I have to say the sprouting rate of coreopsis seeds is not too high. Not all of them sprouted but the seedlings were growing pretty easily and pretty strong so it is definitely worth to try. Coreopsis is known by its common name as tick seed flowers. If you're looking for a low maintenance drought tolerant long blooming flower to fill a bed or line a border coreopsis plants are a perfect choice. This sun kiss variety is really beautiful. These plants have the brightest yellow or burgundy color flowers. They're easy to grow from seeds. They flower very quickly from sowing and they bloom very steadily throughout the summer. You might even forget that it's a hardy perennial. The next one is Gailardia or Gailardia aristata. It is a North American species of flowering plant in the sunflower family known by the common name the common blanket flower. I purchased the Arizona sun hybrid with the package stating that Gailardia cross brandiflora is a floral select gold winner for being a more reliable first year bloomer. The Arizona sun is a preannual Gailardia that was bred to act like an annual. It grows quickly and blooms within 20 weeks from seeding although I have almost all seedlings sprouting from the package with a very fast rate. It seems like the Arizona sun is a beautiful hybrid and I can't wait to see its flowers. I also wish I could collect my own seeds for next year but hybrids from seeds don't grow as true varieties so I might try it anyways. The next one is the fragrant lavender headcoat blue apex variety. The lavender seeds were sold in the herb category. The package promised me that the lavender will bloom in the first year but it is a very slow growing plant. I do wish to think that it will. I am always amazed by how nature manages to grow such a beautiful plant from such a tiny seed in just a few weeks. My seed germination rate was satisfying about 60% and now I just have to wait and see. The deep blue purple flowers I tightly bunched on the spikes. Headcoat is more of a dwarf and it is a winter hardy to zone 5. Apex means that the seeds are coated and it is a special mineral formula with rhizobia bacteria for better germination and quicker growth. Another easy to grow hardy perennial is Aquilegia. I have got the Makana giant mixed seeds and they are supposed to have these tall large flowers good for cutting. It took almost 3.5 weeks for Aquilegia to sprout indoors with a pretty good sprouting rate. Basically it was the last one to sprout from all my other flower seeds. At the beginning of June these young baby plants already looked very attractive and it's sad that I have to wait approximately one year for them to mature and start blooming. It is a hardy to zone 2 almost carefree blooming perennial. Of course I have to wait until next year to see those bicolored giants and maybe it is easier to buy for nearly $20 the mature plant at a box store garden center but then I would miss the whole process of these amazing plants growing from these tiny seeds. For real gardeners it is just as inexpensive and fun to just get 260 seeds for $2.45 and to have these grow blooming as a ground cover in shady places in the garden. Another fragrant perennial which is easy to grow from seeds is the Dianthus mixed or the common Sweet William. These flowers grow on extra long stems and they have an improved flower set. Blooming starts earlier than other single flower varieties by up to 10 days with a more uniform blooming time. Sweet William will bloom after overwintering if you direct seeds in late summer. Perennial Dianthus is hardy to zone 3. Almost 1,000 seeds for $2.65 with great sprouting rates. The seedlings sprout within 10 days and they look like they are pest and disease resistant. Not all my seeds were purchased. I collected my Echinacea seeds myself. New interesting species of perennial flowers in the late fall when the vegetation season has finished and the dead foliage will be removed anyway. I have this white Echinacea I collected. Maybe these seeds need stratification period but I didn't do anything about this. I just kept them in the garage and planted them in a pot. And now I have a good dozen of these cute baby Echinacea ready to be transplanted into a sunny spot. Echinacea needs a whole growing season to mature so no flowers until next year as with some other hardy perennials but they are free for me and it makes me feel great. It doesn't matter if you collect your own or you purchase them. Growing perennial flowers from seeds requires patience, love, and hard work but in many cases this could be the only way to create amazing beautiful flower gardens at a low cost.