Here are a few tips for planting flowers (wildflowers, edible flowers and companion flowers) in autumn so that you can make the most of them.
Planting Edible Flowers
For October planting, we’d recommend planting edible flowers – particularly violas – in pots in a greenhouse. Even if they don’t flower, they are likely to spring into action early next year and you can move them outside for some colour bursts to attract the bees and other pollinators nice and early.
Planting Companion Flowers
Again, these will do well planted in pots in a greenhouse or polytunnel, and then you can move them outdoors. You may find that, if there is enough warmth, they will flower quite quickly and go to seed in which case you could move them outside when they flower and they’ll then re-seed outside in situ so that you get lots of extra companion flowers growing next year.
Planting Wildflowers
Wildflower plugs are great for planting now – if you’re planting into grass, just make sure you cut the grass super-short before you plant. The plugs come with mixed seeds, some might be sprouting already and could flower soon, whilst others will be dormant in the plug and will shoot next spring. It’s a good way of getting them established so that you get an earlier display of wildflowers.