Easy Annual Flowers to Grow From Seed
Planting annual flowers from seed is an easy and inexpensive way to garden.
You can try many varieties for very little cost.
Because they only live for one growing season, annual flowers are a good way to experiment.
You can easily find out which ones grow best in your garden and which ones you like best.
Sunflowers are easy to grow from seed and their large seeds are easy to plant.
Sow them outdoors where they are to grow when the soil has warmed up in late spring.
They come in dozens of varieties, ranging in height from 12 inches to 10 feet.
Sunflowers are yellow, orange, rust, white or multi-colored.
They will bloom beginning about 45 days after sowing.
Marigold seeds are long and thin, but easy to plant.
They germinate and grow very fast and bloom about 45 to 50 days after planting.
Marigolds come in shades of yellow, orange and rust.
They grow 8 to 36 inches high, depending on the variety.
Marigolds will keep blooming in fall long after other summer annuals have faded, until they are killed by a hard frost.
Zinnias grow rapidly from seed.
The seeds are medium-long and thin and germinate quickly.
Zinnias are a hot-weather-loving annual that should be planted in late spring.
Zinnias come in shades of red, pink, orange, coral, cream and white in single or double flowers.
They grow from 12 inches to about 30 inches high.
Zinnias are subject to powdery mildew, a white powder which coats the leaves but doesn't affect the flowers.
Cosmos are a prolific-growing annual flower that not only grows easily from seed, but it readily self-seeds in your garden.
The seeds are long and thin, with a high germination rate.
Although there are several new varieties of cosmos, two stand out as the most-planted.
Cosmos bipinnatus are the familiar pink, deep rose, and white cosmos, commonly sold together in a mixture.
They have fine, lacy foliage andgrow up to 4 feet high in ideal conditions.
The other kind, C.
sulphureus, have flowers in orange, rust, crimson, and gold.
They are shorter, only about 24 to 36 inches high, and their leaves are not as finely cut.
It takes a little longer to see bloom when starting annuals from seed, but you'll be able to grow many more of many different varieties for the same cost as a few small transplants.
An added benefit is that these easy-to-grow-from-seed annuals also produce a lot of seeds, plus they're are easy to collect.
If you initially buy non-hybrid varieties, you only need buy them once.
After that, collect some every fall for next year's garden.
Copyright Sharon Sweeny, 2011
You can try many varieties for very little cost.
Because they only live for one growing season, annual flowers are a good way to experiment.
You can easily find out which ones grow best in your garden and which ones you like best.
Sunflowers are easy to grow from seed and their large seeds are easy to plant.
Sow them outdoors where they are to grow when the soil has warmed up in late spring.
They come in dozens of varieties, ranging in height from 12 inches to 10 feet.
Sunflowers are yellow, orange, rust, white or multi-colored.
They will bloom beginning about 45 days after sowing.
Marigold seeds are long and thin, but easy to plant.
They germinate and grow very fast and bloom about 45 to 50 days after planting.
Marigolds come in shades of yellow, orange and rust.
They grow 8 to 36 inches high, depending on the variety.
Marigolds will keep blooming in fall long after other summer annuals have faded, until they are killed by a hard frost.
Zinnias grow rapidly from seed.
The seeds are medium-long and thin and germinate quickly.
Zinnias are a hot-weather-loving annual that should be planted in late spring.
Zinnias come in shades of red, pink, orange, coral, cream and white in single or double flowers.
They grow from 12 inches to about 30 inches high.
Zinnias are subject to powdery mildew, a white powder which coats the leaves but doesn't affect the flowers.
Cosmos are a prolific-growing annual flower that not only grows easily from seed, but it readily self-seeds in your garden.
The seeds are long and thin, with a high germination rate.
Although there are several new varieties of cosmos, two stand out as the most-planted.
Cosmos bipinnatus are the familiar pink, deep rose, and white cosmos, commonly sold together in a mixture.
They have fine, lacy foliage andgrow up to 4 feet high in ideal conditions.
The other kind, C.
sulphureus, have flowers in orange, rust, crimson, and gold.
They are shorter, only about 24 to 36 inches high, and their leaves are not as finely cut.
It takes a little longer to see bloom when starting annuals from seed, but you'll be able to grow many more of many different varieties for the same cost as a few small transplants.
An added benefit is that these easy-to-grow-from-seed annuals also produce a lot of seeds, plus they're are easy to collect.
If you initially buy non-hybrid varieties, you only need buy them once.
After that, collect some every fall for next year's garden.
Copyright Sharon Sweeny, 2011
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