6 Perennial Cut Flowers to Sow in September (Before It's Too Late!).

September is the perfect time to sow a final batch of perennial cut flower seeds. The weather is still warm and the days are still long so let's take advantage of that by sowing these six super useful perennial cut flower plants. Perennials are one of the best investments you can make in your cut flower patch and experienced growers often advise newer growers to invest in perennials at the start. That's because perennials are lower maintenance than annuals that need to be started from seed each season and perennials are also more reliable and resilient. Perennials are something that you can plant once and enjoy for years to come with very little maintenance. Perennials are also amazing value for money because once you've invested in them and let them grow on you can divide them and take cuttings for them to create even more plants for free. It's usually best to sow perennial seeds earlier on in the season in spring so that they can grow into nice strong plants over the summer but if you missed it off your to-do list or you think that you could do with some extra perennials for next season then sowing in autumn while it's still warm can also be a good idea and it'll give you a head start on next season. In this case though it's probably best not to plant these perennials out in the ground before winter because the winter might just be too harsh for these small plants but it's better to let them germinate and grow into small plants and protect them over the winter in a polytunnel greenhouse or cold frame. In spring you'll notice that your perennials start putting on fresh growth and after your last frost in spring you can plant them out into the ground so that they can have a long season of growth ahead of them. Over winter daylight hours are reduced and plants don't grow much but if you notice that your plants are starting to outgrow their soil blocks, cell trays or pots then you can pop them up into fresh compost to keep them growing and keep them happy before you can plant them out next spring. I'm going to be soil blocking my seedlings today because I find that it creates healthier seedlings with better root systems and I can also fit more seedlings in in a small space. I'm mixing my compost with water and some goop from the Soilsmiths who are the sponsor of today's video. The goop is a concentrated extract of soil food web microbes which we can use as an inoculant in our compost and soils. The microbes help to unlock the nutrients that are present in the compost resulting in healthier plants. The goop has also been shown to increase drought tolerance in plants, something that's at the top of everyone's mind after the hot dry summer we've had. Once the plants are established I use the living feed by the Soilsmiths as a complementary plant food. It supports the microbes and provides nutrients to the plants in a way that they can easily absorb it. This season I noticed that my plants were so healthy and resilient despite the weather. If you'd like to try some for yourself then scan the QR code on screen or click the link in the description to go to the Soilsmiths website. Once everything is nicely mixed I'll fill my soil blocker and push out the blocks ready for seed sowing. Starting off with one of my favourites Feverfew is a really productive plant and just a few plants will give you armfuls of flowers all season. It typically flowers from June till September making it well worth the space that you set aside for it. I usually grow the standard Feverfew varieties but I've got some new varieties that I'm going to try today which I'm quite excited about. I've got Tanacetum Parthenium Cameron which is the plain single style variety of Feverfew which is so handy for adding a cottage garden feel to bouquets. I love growing it to take to farmers markets and things like that. Even selling it just in straight bunches of Feverfew always goes down really well. As well as Cameron I'm also going to be growing a new variety called Orinoco or a new variety to me even and I've bought these seeds from Forevergreen Seed and Bulb Company and this one here is kind of like a pale creamy colour and it has semi-double petals. It's almost like a buttery yellow colour which is very on trend at the moment so I'm really excited to see how these ones look in arrangements. To get Feverfew off to a good start sow the seeds onto the surface of the compost and don't cover the seeds as they require light for germination. Germinate at 18 to 20 degrees Celsius and when the plant is large enough plant it out at 12 inch spacing. Next is another easy perennial to start from seed and also another filler flower. Achillea millefolium flowers from May until the first frosts The bed behind me has been super useful on my new farm this season and I've been growing the varieties Summer Pastel and Colorado which are shades of pink, dusky sunset colours, terracotta and pale yellow. But Achillea also comes in a variety of bright colours too. The colours complement almost any vibe that you're going for in arrangements so if you've never grown it before I encourage you to put it in and you won't know what you did before without it. It's also a really great flower for drying if that's something that you're into. To get Achillea off to a good start I'm sowing the seeds on the surface of the compost and the seeds require light for germination so I'm not going to cover them over. They prefer temperatures of between 18 and 25 degrees Celsius so this should do just fine in the polytunnel, greenhouse or windowsill. Germination should take around 5 to 10 days and once they become big enough you can either pot them up into larger pots or soil blocks and then you can plant them out at 12 inch spacing after the risk of frost has passed next season. They require very little maintenance or upkeep you can just plant them out and forget about them and then harvest armfuls of flowers from them next season. If you want to cultivate more of a particular coloured plant you can take cuttings or divide the plant to create a clone of the parent. Next up is Campanula and if you've been watching any of my videos in the last year or two then you'll know that I've become completely obsessed with Campanula. I love growing the biennial variety but these are the perennial varieties which are a little bit more delicate than the biennial varieties which are really great for dainty floral arrangements. Today I'm sowing two varieties, White Bells and Blue Bells. These Campanula are herbaceous perennials which means they'll die back in winter and then they'll regrow from the energy stored in their roots in spring. It flowers in May and June which makes it the perfect complement to those beautiful pastel coloured arrangements that we can put together with foxgloves, ranunculus, peonies and all of those spring goodies. So these are also really small seeds so I'm just going to sow them onto the surface of the soil blocks today and they like a temperature of between 16 and 18 degrees for germination. Eucalyptus is next on this list and it's probably one of the most popular types of greenery that is used in floristry and it's always really sought after by florists. It's probably easiest to buy this as plants and plant it out in the ground but it's equally as fun to start it from seed and it's cheaper too. Mature eucalyptus must be maintained to ensure that they continue to produce the desirable young foliage otherwise they end up as monster giant trees like the one demonstrated here by Neil, a eucalyptus grower that I visited in North Wales. When I met with Neil last year he explained that leaving nothing but bare pollarded stumps in his fields come spring. Neil had lots of other useful tips for growing eucalyptus so I'll pop the link in the description so you can check that one out later. So if you want to try growing eucalyptus from seed then here's how it's done. Today I'm sowing eucalyptus pulveralenta baby blue bouquet which has the signature eucalyptus bluey type foliage and the leaf shape that goes so well in floral arrangements. I'm going to sow the seeds onto the surface of the soil blocks and then cover it with a little bit more compost. Germination ideally takes place at between 20 and 23 degrees celsius so again perfect in polytunnel greenhouse or cold frame for now. They also like high humidity so if you can provide that then that's even better. Germination takes two to three weeks and once they become large enough you can keep potting them up until they're fairly large plants and then plant them out into the ground next year once the risk of frost has passed. In mild climates eucalyptus will survive year after year and will grow into big established trees and because of that you need to consider where you are going to plant them in the garden. Next I'm sowing something that I've never grown before which is hellenium and I first came to know how useful this was as a cut flower earlier on this summer when I bought a couple of flowers from my neighbor Fiona who is just a stone's throw away from my field and I bought a couple of buckets for her for my farmer's market this August just to help me to have a few more flowers for the market and she put some hellenium in the buckets and it was so useful as a flower to take up space in the bouquets add a pop of color and also they lasted so long in the bars so I'm definitely going to be adding that to my future grow lists. That's one of the wonderful things about connecting with other local growers is finding out nice recommendations like that and also collaborating with each other. So it looks like this is actually going to be a bit of a tricky perennial to germinate because it says that germination can be slow and erratic and it also says that it might require cold stratification and cold stratification is where we allow the seeds to feel the cold of winter and then the warmth of spring following that so the seed thinks it's gone through winter and it's warming up in spring so it's safe to germinate so if we don't provide that then the seeds might not germinate but the cool thing about sowing our seeds later on in autumn is we can allow the seeds to experience this naturally by sowing them on the soil blocks and then leaving them be throughout winter. Those seeds that don't germinate will hopefully germinate in spring. So I'm going to sow these seeds on the surface of the soil blocks because they're another one that like to germinate, it seems like a common thread in today's video and then I'm going to put them in the polytunnel and if they don't germinate within a couple of weeks then I'm just going to leave them be throughout the winter and hope that I get more germination come spring. Another way around the cold stratification is to sow them and if they don't germinate put them in the freezer for a couple of weeks and then bring them out and try and get them to germinate that way or sometimes people like to keep their seeds in the freezer in which case when they come out and experience the warmth hopefully that'll trigger the seeds to germinate. If I leave the tray in the polytunnel over winter then I'll just make sure not to over water the blocks or leave them sitting too wet because that might cause the seeds to rot. Any plants that do germinate can be potted up before winter or in spring when they start growing on and just left in the polytunnel cold frame or greenhouse over winter and then planted out in spring when the risk of frost has passed. Last but not least is perennial limonium and there's a couple of varieties that I really like to grow not only for fresh flowers but for dried flowers too and that is limonium latifolium and limonium tataricum. I first grew limonium latifolium a few years ago and I didn't like it at first because I found it too bushy and too difficult to arrange with but more recently I started using it in some of my arrangements and instead of using the whole stem I used to strip it down and use a very thin branch of it instead and it really added kind of like a whimsical and fluffy airy feel to bouquets and I really really enjoyed using it and those side stems that I stripped off actually I dried them and they were really useful for wreath making at Christmas so after that I fell back in love with it and I've loved using it ever since. It flowers between May and July and if you keep deadheading it then it's going to keep producing flowers. I'm going to sow both of these seeds the tataricum and the latifolium onto the top of the soil blocks and then cover them with a light sprinkling of vermiculite then they like a temperature of between 18 and 23 degrees for germination. It can be potted up into larger pots when it reaches a big enough size and then when it's finally time to plant it out then you can put it in the garden at 12 inch spacing. It'll bulk up into a sizable plant within a couple of years and then you can dig it up and divide it to create more plants for free. So that's six perennials sown today ready to become useful plants in the cut flower patch next season. Let me know in the comments if you'll be giving any of these varieties a try but for now thank you so much for watching and I can't wait to see you again soon on another video all about growing cut flowers.