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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 (00:02)
Welcome to the Blooming Garden podcast with me, Jane Westoby. Each week I'll be sharing my journey and the inspiring journeys of my guests as we delve into the world of sowing and so whether you're just starting out and you need advice on the basics or you're further along your gardening journey and looking for expert tips, we've got something to help you navigate through the seasons with success.
Together, we'll explore the joys and the challenges of gardening, celebrate the beauty of nature, and discover how you too can make the most of your growing space, whether you're a gardener or a flower farmer. So grab your gloves and join me on this blooming adventure.
Jane Westoby (00:49)
Hi everyone. So today is going to be a little bit of a shorty episode, but I just wanted to record this podcast. So it's morning for me here. just got up and I just made my coffee and my head is absolutely buzzing with all of the things that I need to sow over the next few weeks. Like literally buzzing and
I started to think about all the Matthiola Incana that I need to sow. So that scented stocks and how I really, really need to get them sowed ASAP because I have some weddings coming up in the summer and I need lots of Matthiola Incana for that. so I started to do some voice recordings, some voice notes, and just got so carried away that kind of literally halfway through, I just thought, no, this, like, I really need to share this as a podcast.
You know, get so many questions about Scented stocks and about how I grow them. So I thought, okay, let's stop and let's just get the headset out. and let's just do this as a podcast instead, because I think it's so, so valuable. So I'm literally sitting here in my PJs. I won't turn my camera on, but honestly, I'm sat here in my PJs. So let's, get going.
Let's talk about scented stocks. So I have not always been successful with my scented stocks. Okay, so they are so beautiful. They are like a florist's dream. They're amazing. The scent is like nothing else you can ever smell. It's like a combination of like a cinnamony, jasminey,
spicy kind of fragrance that is so unmatched by anything else, especially the apricot varieties. And they also come in the most beautiful array of colors from peaches through to yellows. So kind of really lovely kind of nice light colors for weddings and then through to the really dark purples and the marine colors. And honestly, I love them. I love them all. They're all so beautiful.
Okay, so for years I tried to grow scented stocks I had, I would say, I'd say limited success. So you know what it's like as a flower farmer, you'll hedge your bets, you'll grow lots of different flowers, especially in your first few years, just to see what works for you.
and to see what's going to grow and what's going to be successful. And then you can double down on all of those flowers, which do really, really well, that you know that you can make a lot of money from. You know, the cut and come varieties like your Cosmos, your Zinnia, they are staples for any flower farmer. And so with stocks, I never really managed to quite hit the mark. I grew them for years, I only grew a handful.
I would maybe only grow like maybe one tray of one color. And honestly, they were a bit, you know, Meeeh! They would be short. They wouldn't have many blooms on them. And I would have a lot of singles and I couldn't quite get to grips with how to differentiate the singles from the doubles at the seedling stage. So they were just a little bit, I would say like wispy and yeah, not great. Wispy and wimpy. So if you found the same thing,
and you've written off Mathelio Incana from your growing list, then stay with me here. Stay with me because a few years ago, I then decided that I had to crack the code. I had to get these blooms in my flower field because they were so amazing. And I was having to go to my wholesaler to buy them and import them in. That's not great. I do not like to import anything if I can help it. I always like to have a
really good ready supply of blooms just sitting there waiting for me to cut and to put into my bouquets for my weddings and events. So that year I decided that I was going to grow a bunch of mythology and crack the code finally. So I chose something like six or seven different colorways and I grew two trays of each and I grew the cat's variety and the
iron variety. I grew both so the iron variety is a slightly earlier variety it will just bloom a few weeks earlier so it will give me a bit more of a succession. So I sowed roughly about two trays of each each one of my trays holds about 24 seedlings so that's about 48 across the six or seven different colors so we're talking around 300 seedlings here so it's not a huge huge amount.
but I'd only ever sowed like one tray before and they were a complete failure. So I never really wanted to go all out and grow anymore. So the 300, roughly 300, it was plenty for me to be able to do more of an experiment. So I sowed some of them into trays and just on the surface of the tray. And I sowed some of them into soil blocks just to see which method I would prefer and which one would be more successful.
for me and what I found was that they all did really really well. They all germinated super super easily I would say. Okay so from there a few weeks later I made sure that I pricked them out. I did not allow them to get root bound. One of the worst things you can do with Matthiola Incana
and with any flower really is to allow it to get root bound. You need to move it on to the next stage in its journey, the next stage in its life as quickly as you can and as quickly as it needs that room to grow. Okay. So from there, I then managed to
get that out into the garden when it was ready. So when they were, would say maybe like four or five centimeters tall, I then planted them out into the garden I planted a whole bed of them. So I planted them in rows all together in one big bed and I suppose this
may have been where I failed before because I just wasn't growing enough. I wasn't growing the volume to really make it worthwhile to then have them in lots of rows, all in one big bed, all next to each other. So by doing this, I have them all in the same place, all together, and I really focused and I really doubled down on them. So I put a cover over the top of them.
It was just like a low tunnel over the top just to give them a little bit of protection. Not a lot, just a little bit, just for a few weeks until the weather got warmer. What I didn't do, so my first mistake is that I planted them 15 centimeters apart. I should have planted them closer and I'll come onto that in a second.
The second mistake I made is that at the point that I planted them out, I didn't stake them. So they must, must be staked. Now they grow so tall and they will grow so quickly that they will fall over if you don't stake them. So don't make the same mistake that I did. Stake them when you put them in the ground. They will be so much more successful if you do do that. Okay. So that's
kind of the first two mistakes. then as they grew, I then realized that I had sown them a little bit too far apart. I think that I could have sown them maybe between five and 10 centimeters apart and that would have been perfect. Yeah, they would have been packed in, but that would have actually been perfect. And when you do that, you need to make sure when you pack your blooms in, so if you're growing,
and you don't have much space, like I've never had much space as a flower farmer. So I've always had to pack my blooms in. You need to make sure that you give them enough water and enough nutrients for the number of flowers that you you're actually packing into your small space. So I put manure in my beds usually in the autumn or over the wintertime. And then I sprinkle some chicken manure.
onto the beds before I plant and then throughout the growing season I will give them maybe a seaweed fertilizer so maybe some spray and then I'll maybe try and just chuck in a little bit more chicken manure maybe after about four to six weeks as well I'll maybe try to give a little bit extra so I give I give them plenty of nutrients to keep them going okay so I then made sure
that I left them for long enough. So.
As the flowers open, I just made sure that I left them to grow as long as possible. So, is, mythology doesn't like the heat too much. It likes cool weather and it will grow and grow and grow taller and taller and taller. If it doesn't get the sunshine and the heat.
So our spring temperatures here in the UK are actually perfect
Matthiola Incana will flower when it reaches the 10 true leaf stage and the optimum temperature for this flower bud initiation is around I'd say 18 to 20 degrees. But if your plants are too short when they approach this 10th true leaf stage
keep the day temperature above 18 degrees C to keep them growing, but try and keep the day length at less than 12 hours. Okay. So if you can cover them in any way for a few hours to just stop the sunlight reaching them and give them more essentially nighttime hours, then this will delay their initiation. But the best thing to do
actually is to just sow them early enough. By sowing Metholia Incana too late you are giving it an opportunity to flower too, essentially too early before it gets to the length that you need those stems. Okay so that's, it's my first tip
So that's probably one of the mistakes that I'd made in previous years. I was probably just waiting, essentially just waiting too long.
before I actually sowed my seeds. So within this, consistency is also key. So avoiding heat stress is a must for Matthiola carna. So anything above about 21 degrees C will negatively impact the flower bud development. So you might get poor quality blooms or reduced flowering. They are, they're cool flowers.
And you know, in the UK, they're actually perfect. You know, the conditions where it gets above 21 degrees C in the UK are only really in the summer months. So throughout the spring, you should be quite safe.
So looping back to my second mistake of not staking my plants. So as they grew, they flopped over and I found that I then had to stake them. Now I had to then go in and stake each one of them literally individually and put a small stake in the ground next to each one, take my twine and tie the flower to the stake. Now, if I'd have done this properly,
in the first place and I'd have used kind of a big stake in four corners and I'd have put some netting over, that would have saved me a whole heap of time. But what I did find with my individual staking method, where they'd flopped over is that I could correct that and they would then grow straight. So as soon as I staked them and I did have to force some of them
straight to actually grow up straight again and they were tied quite tightly to my canes but it did actually work. Once I went to cut them and I took the stake off they did actually regrow straight so it does work but doing it from the beginning and actually putting maybe a double layer of netting on and allowing them to go through that netting is probably a much easier way
of staking your stocks and it not taking forever in a day and having to actually physically tie each one of them to a cane because that was a complete pain.
So the next thing to note is that I kept both my singles and my doubles. So the doubles are the ones that everybody wants, but only around 50 % of your stock plants will actually grow doubles. And that's due to the genetic inheritance of the double flower trait in stocks. Now there are some new blooms on the market coming this winter. Hopefully we'll have some seeds.
which actually have a higher count of doubles. So watch out for those. But for the moment, we've got the iron and the Kat's series and they are around 50 % doubles. Okay. So this trait in stocks, it's controlled by a recessive genes. It means that for a stock plant to produce double blooms, it needs to inherit two copies of the recessive genes. So one from each parent.
but plants only inherit one copy of the gene and then they'll have single blooms, okay? But they'll still carry on the gene to pass it onto their offspring.
So to only grow the doubles you need to weed out the singles from your seedlings at the early growth stage essentially. Okay so you would sow your seeds either into your trays
or into your soil blocks, whichever ones you choose. You'd pop a sprinkle of vermiculite over the top, pop them into your propagator to maintain a really nice, even moisture. Don't allow them to dry out before the seedlings germinate. And you'd give them that ideal temperature of 18 to 20 degrees C. So you might need some heat mats to be able to do that, okay?
So after they've germinated, you then need to grow them on in a temperature of around, roughly around 16 degrees C during the day and about 13 at night. So simply by taking them off those heat mats and maybe having them in a, let's say a warm greenhouse, that should do the trick.
So after about eight days, it's good to remove the last seedlings that germinated, okay?
if you sow, let's say three to four seeds into your plug tray, then what you can do is you can remove the last seedling.
which germinated in that plug. So if you sowed, let's say four seeds or four germinated, then you can take the last one out. So this last one, which germinated is most likely to be a single. That's why we remove that one. So you'll then be left with three more. If only three germinate, again, you can take one out, the last one to germinate, take that one out, just take it out with tweezers.
Again, so you're getting rid of the one that is most likely to be the single. You'll then be left with two. If only two of them germinate, I would probably keep both. So around day nine to 10, then allow the soil to just dry out slightly. By doing this, you'll be able to make that final selection between singles and doubles a little bit easier. Okay.
So then a few days later, around, I would say day 14, so just before those first true leaves start to emerge, you can then make your selection for singles and doubles, okay? So your double flowered seedlings, they are far more vigorous and they will grow more rapidly than the singles, okay? They're bigger, they're larger.
They have a more elliptical shape and they're also a light green color. So the single flowered seedlings, they're gonna be smaller, they'll be shorter, and they'll also be a dark green color. So when you are looking at all of your seedlings,
If you don't grow enough seedlings, let's say you only have 12 seedlings on the go, it's really, really difficult to tell the difference between the dark ones and the light ones. They just all kind of look green. Whereas if you grow more of them, it's just more obvious. So this is again, one of the mistakes that I made by not growing enough, not going all in.
I was limiting my chances of being able to pick out the single flowers that I didn't want. So all of those dark colored seedlings, you can then remove them all. They are all the singles. They're all the ones that maybe you don't want. And I'll say maybe because the other thing that you can do is keep all of your singles and doubles. So the year I did this, I didn't select for singles and doubles.
I actually kept them all because what I wanted to do was actually use my singles for something else. So not necessarily put them in bouquets. Although if you're making something like a wild flower bouquet, they actually look really lovely and wild flower bouquets. Okay. So they have very, very different look. They do look kind of wild.
I also found that they were really, really useful for flower crown workshops as well, where we just wanted something really pretty and lightweight. What I find is that the doubles are too big and too heavy for making flower crowns with, and the singles were just perfect. So you actually don't have to select out your singles and get rid of them.
it's actually much more economical to just keep them because you've paid for the seed anyway, keep them and see what you can use them for. So that's what I do. I don't take out my singles, but you can, as I've just explained how to do that, you can do that. So when your seedlings then have the four to five true leaves, which should be around like the five centimeter mark, something like that, maybe a little bit bigger, you can then plant them out to their
to their final flowering positions. So it might seem too early, but getting them into the ground is really, really key. They need the space to develop a really good long root system. they can be planted really, really close together. I planted mine like 10 to 15 centimeters. I would go five to 10. I don't think that's too close. I think that's just fine. So make sure that you put your netting up.
and then you're good to go.
So you will then be able to harvest your blooms in 13 to 25 weeks, somewhere between there, which is really based on when the plants initiate the flowers. OK, so that's when you'll be able to cut them. So you're going to cut the stems with no less than three flowers open. But if you can get to like between seven and 15 flowers open on the spike, that's good. That's perfect.
You need to be patient. Do not cut them too early. because they won't open up much more if they're too closed. Okay. So they are a one hit wonder. So once you've cut them, you can then clear that ground and use it for another crop, which is absolutely fantastic. It allows you to get a really good succession in your planting space, in your field, in your plots, whatever you have.
and it really allows you to maximise your space. So, if you failed with growing stocks in previous seasons, then do give it another go. It's well worth the effort, but you do need to go all in. Do not just grow a handful because it just won't be significant enough to actually make a difference. You need to grow enough to actually grow them in a nice big block, okay? So...
Happy sowing everyone, give it another go. What I'll do is I also have a blog on the subject as well, which gives you all this detail all written down. So I will link to that in the show notes for you. so happy growing and I'll see you next time.