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Perfect for gardening enthusiasts at any level, this podcast is your companion to cultivating success and beauty in your own backyard or flower patch. Hosted by Jane Westoby from Fuchsia Blooms Florist and The Hampshire Seed Company.
Each episode is a treasure trove of practical tips, expert advice, and insider flower farming guides designed to help you sow and grow with confidence and harvest with pride. Whether you’re dreaming of rows of neat vegetables or cutting flowers for bouquets all year round, we’ll walk you through every step.
Let’s grow together!
Jane Westoby (00:00)
Hey there flower friends and welcome back to the podcast that believes flowers should be local seasonal and grown with love not wrapped in plastic and flown halfway across the world. I'm Jane, the founder of the Hampshire Seed Company. I'm a seed obsessed florist turned to flower farmer who's gone from wedding chaos to seed packet chaos. And these days I help other growers to build blooming good businesses.
So whether you're planting your first tray of cosmos or you're scaling up for serious sales, you're in the right place. And I know it's been a little while because I've been very, very busy. Recently, I left my corporate day job and I am in the seed business full time now. I've also been doing and recording lots and lots of grow alongs, which is one of the reasons why I wanted to come on today because
I want to talk about something which completely changes the great game for your growing season. And that's autumn sowing. And this is what all of my grow alongs have been about. And it's the secret to getting ahead. It's a secret to avoiding that hungry gap and having flowers weeks earlier than your neighbors.
So everyone really loves to romanticize autumn don't they? know it's the season to slow down, it's cozy jumpers, put your feet up, just tidy bits of the garden. But honestly if you want a productive garden or a productive cutting patch or farm that is not how it works. Autumn it really isn't the end of the growing year, it's the beginning of the next one. Now is the beginning of next season so if you want
a gorgeous lush garden or an overflowing cutting patch for 2026, then now is the time. You might think everything's dying back, but below the surface, the soil is really alive and it's busy. Roots are growing. Microlibial life is like it's thriving and those hardy annuals, they are quietly getting established.
so that they can then explode into growth the minute the days start to lengthen. And you might have noticed that in spring, that as soon as you reach the equinox, everything starts to explode.
back in episode 10, I talked all about why seeds sulk and understanding the equinox. So if you want to know about that, then hop back to episode number 10 and I explain all about that in there.
So if you wait until spring to sow, you are essentially already behind. I mean, if you don't sow, really by the end of October and into November, you are behind. Your plants will be smaller, your blooms will be later, you'll completely miss that sweet early window, essentially, when if you're a flower farmer, demand and prices are really high. If you're a gardener, you're just gonna have empty gaps, you're gonna have empty.
space. So if you are new to the term hungry gap, this is that awkward spell in the UK around May time and it's slightly different depending on whereabouts in the country you are, whether you're up in Scotland or down on the South coast, I'm down on the South coast. So for me, it's May, kind of probably early May for me, let's say the first couple of weeks.
And it's when those spring bulbs like the daffodils and the tulips are finished. But your summer flowers, they're not ready yet. And they're not gonna be ready for another three to four weeks. So you've got this kind of month or so, I'll say, where there's not a lot growing if you haven't planned. Now...
I'm going to say this, I've never actually experienced a hungry gap. That's because I've been growing since I was 16. I'd literally just left school and I had a garden and my partner's parents taught me how to grow and how to grow hardy annuals. So I've been really, really lucky, I suppose, in that I've been very keen to grow.
and wanted to start things really early, that autumn sowing for me was absolutely perfect because it ticked that box for me for keenness. And by getting them in early, they're going to be really strong enough to flower right through that tricky gap and give you beautiful and sellable stems when everyone else's beds are bare. if you have neighbours that garden, then
then this is ideal. So let's talk specifics because these are my autumn sown, these are my go-to autumn sown crops. And I've done some grow alongs for some of these as well because some of them are a little bit tricky. So all lyre is probably, I would say my number one because it's really delicate and airy.
and it's perfect for late April and May bouquets. So I actually love or Orlaya more than something like Gyp GYp can often be quite heavy, especially if you're buying it in. So if you're a florist who buys Gyp in, sometimes...
The Gyp is actually so thick and heavy that when I have bought it in in the past, I've actually had to cut half of it off because it's too bulky. Less so if you grow your own because it probably won't be quite as heavy. But I actually prefer to use gyp and I always try to steer my brides towards Orlaya rather than Gyp because I think it actually looks a lot more sophisticated.
and it's really pretty. So that's probably my number one go-to, especially for whites. And then I'd say probably my second one is Larkspur. so no, let's go back to Orlaya But the Orlaya can be a little bit tricky to grow because it needs cold stratification.
So what I do find is in the, with autumn sown seeds of Orlaya, they flower kind of late April and into May. And then that's it, they're done. They're finished actually quite quickly. But what I've noticed is if you sow it in springtime, it does last a lot longer. It seems to just go on and on and on and on. So that's a bit of a difference that I have found, but also if you do sow Orlaya in springtime,
definitely need to cold stratify it. mean, it needs to cold stratify in autumn, but you can let Mother Nature do that for you. In spring, the temperatures just aren't there. So you would need to pop it in the fridge. I do have a blog all about growing Orlaya So I will link to that in the show notes for you. So if you want to grow Orlaya, then have a little look in the show notes and I will link through.
through to it for you. So my next go-to flower is Larkspur. And Larkspur again, similar to Orlaya, it loves a cold snap. It needs cold stratification to actually germinate. The great thing about Larkspur is it gives you spires and it gives you color as well. Now, Larkspur is not an early crop.
though that's one thing I will say so Larkspur won't flower in April and early May the best you'll get from Larkspur is a late May and then into June but if you don't sow it until spring you're talking it's not going to flower until July so that's how you can bring Larkspur forward a little bit and actually get some earlier spike blooms in there. My next one is cornflower now love it or hate it
cornflower will give you lots of early blooms. I have had cornflower in my polytunnel in April. So it's been a bit of a lifesaver really when there's literally not much else out there to put with the tulips and with the tulips and the daffodils. Actually cornflower has been absolutely perfect for me. Now I know it is really, really fiddly to harvest.
But if you harvest it in the right way and you think about it in the right way, then it's actually a really great crop. So picking and harvesting single stems is laborious, very laborious. But if you have something like a flower crown workshop, that's actually, it's ideal. It's exactly what you need for flower crowns. If you are selling it wholesale and you...
and you just need speed, then actually you just cut down the whole crop. As soon as it starts flowering, soon as those first few flowers start to open, then you just cut the whole lot down. And that's the easiest way to actually sell that crop because they will open in the vase. And that's perfect actually for wholesale. So my next one is Nigella. And if you sow Nigella direct now,
It will pop up on days when it's nice and warm. It will start to germinate and it will overwinter perfectly fine in the soil. And then it's just ideal. You literally don't need to do anything with Nigella. Like literally you don't need to do anything with Nigella. It's like literally the perfect crop for ease. And you'll be able to pick.
bucket loads of it from April onwards.
which is perfect for adding to those spring bouquets. So they are for me, in terms of my hardy annuals, they are my four go-to crops for hardy annuals. Now there are other gap fillers for May that I absolutely love as well. So one of those are wallflowers. They are absolutely perfect. And again,
I've grown wallflowers in a polytunnel so I've got really nice early blooms throughout April and the colors just look fantastic with tulips. They add that extra little sparkle. My next one is lupins. Now lupins are again perennial and you grow them outside. I don't grow my lupins in a polytunnel.
Just because I've not needed to, I don't need them to flower any earlier and I actually don't want to waste the space in my polytunnel with lupins because they grow so big, they grow enormous. And they fill that May gap so beautifully, adding the most amazing structure to the garden or bouquets or a wedding because you can grow them in whites and blues and pinks and yellows, like literally anyone under the sun.
And actually, there was one flower, if you were not going to grow or Lyo or Larkspur or Cornflower or any of that, and there was just one thing that you were going to grow, I would say lupins. I would choose lupins hands down over anything else for May because those blooms, those stems are so big and so chunky that in terms of value for money, they are.
I'd say hands down a number one crop for me. And the best thing about them is they are cut and come again. And this is something that I didn't actually realize as a gardener, I didn't realize that they were cut and come again because as a gardener, you tend to not really pick them. You leave them in your garden. But if you pick them regularly, they will just replace those flowers that you've picked right through May and June and into July.
So for a really, really long time, you'll get three months worth of blooms if you keep cutting them. If you don't keep cutting them and you let them go to seed, then they will stop producing the flowers. Okay, so that's my number one. And then, and I have to now mention, Ranunculas So, my goodness, don't even get me started. We have French Ranunculas this year and we are almost sold out. I think we have a few packets left. So if you do want to grow French Ranunculas, then
head along to the shop, I will put the link in the show notes for you, head along. These are my May workhorses. So if you pre-sprout them in October and November and you tuck them into a polytunnel or greenhouse, they will flower weeks and weeks and weeks before any spring growing crop. And they are so beautiful as well. are, they're kind of...
my number one beauty flower. If lupins are my number one workhorse, I'd say ranunculars are my number one beauty flower really for spring. So there we have it. They are my essentially my seven go-to spring crops that I wouldn't be without. There are lots and lots of other crops that you can grow, but I'd say for me, those are my key
key crops, even if you've only got a small tunnel or a cold frame, you can easily grow these and that protected environment can really bring your first blooms forward by a few weeks.
Because here's the thing about autumn sown plants, they are stronger, they face the cold, they developed a much better root system and they don't bol, and they don't struggle when spring arrives. They just get on with it and they flower earlier. So often by a full month, which means that you're cutting when everyone else is still waiting for their blooms, you're first at the market if you're selling and if you're a home grower.
you just get to enjoy the flowers for longer, essentially. And meanwhile, all of the spring sown counterparts, which are still really important because they're important for succession, they're still getting their act together in the background and they'll take over a few weeks later. And the other thing that I do find is by sowing now, you can actually free up your springtime space in your trays and your benches.
for those true summer annuals for like your zinnias and your cosmos and your cilogias by actually bringing some of this forward. You're bringing the work forward, number one, in terms of your time potting and transplanting and pricking out, etc. But you're also saving time on the bench because most of us, me included, have limited space.
So everything just flows better when autumn and spring really work together like this and you use both. So if you are listening to this right now and you're thinking, well, where do I start? Here is your to-do list. Just pick three. Just pick three hardy annuals or perennials and just focus on those.
If you've got some protection like a cold frame or a greenhouse, then use it. It's ideal. You don't need a full big setup. Literally a cold frame is enough. I've grown for years in cold frames and I still have several cold frames that I use now. I don't put everything in a greenhouse because my greenhouse simply isn't big enough. And then...
You can then make a note in your succession plan for when these are going to bloom and you can then layer them in with your bulbs and your ranunculars and anemones for that seamless kind of spring to summer flow. So don't buy into the myth that autumn is a time to rest. I'm here to tell you it's not. Autumn sowing is your head start and it is what separates a garden that waits for flowers from one that's bursting with them.
So if you want to plan your year with total confidence, then check out my Grow Alongs, which are live on the website. They all come with a video tutorial, which is available in YouTube. And I will link to all of those in the show notes for you. So you can go away and you can watch those videos and you can get your sewing right.
So until next time, keep sewing, keep dreaming and remember that the flowers that you plant today are next year's beauties just waiting to happen.