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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 (00:03)
Hello there, beautiful growers. Pour yourself a cuppa and curl up in the potting shed. This is the Blooming Garden podcast and I'm Jane Westoby Wedding Day florist, flower farm fanatic and unapologetic seed queen at the Hampshire Seed Company. And here, we ditch the jet-lagged plastic-wrapped blooms and we raise local legends instead. Together, we turn petal passion into profit.
and we swap the overwhelm for orderly seed trays and building businesses or back garden paradises that actually fit with your life. And each week I'll hand you the exact roadmap. So what to buy, when to sow, how to grow and how to plan months and months ahead so that your beds can burst with colour and not gaps season after season. So expect cheat sheets in the show notes.
crop calendars, an honest talk about pricing, marketing, and how to make flowers, pay the bills, or bloom all season. So whether you are nursing your very first tray of cosmos or you're scaling up to ship six-figure stems, grab your notebook, the class is in session.
if you've ever dreamed of turning a single tray of seedlings into a garden that funds your flower habit, then you found your people. And now I know it's midsummer and that you're currently cooking like a Sunday race inside that polytunnel. And spring, honestly, it feels like
It's really far away. It feels as distant as the last time I went to the gym. But if you want a garden in May that makes your neighbours gasp, the work starts now, not next March. most gardeners, they crack open their seed packets in March.
and they cram everything into trays. And then they wonder why their border looks like a toddler smile with gaps all over the place. And the secret weapon here is succession sowing. So staggering different crops in different sowing windows so that something fabulous is always, always coming down the line and strutting its stuff down that floral catwalk of your garden.
Think of it like a fancy dinner. You wouldn't serve every course all at once, would you? Or maybe a festival, if you're into festivals, you wouldn't expect all of the bands to all play all at the same time. Now know some of them do, and that is a little bit like the garden, some of the flowers are all out at the same time, but you do want a succession and you want to save some for later. So, flowers deserve that same forethought, essentially. You don't want them blooming all at the same time.
So tulips and dahlias, I would say, are maybe the headline acts that everyone knows about. But Hardy annuals are that kind of gritty indie band that warms up the crowd and can steal the show sometimes. So you can start to sow them in late summer and through autumn. And they're sometimes referred to as cool flowers.
for a reason, because they love cool weather and they establish their deep roots while the rest of the plant world is busy dozing off quite frankly. And come spring, these cool flowers, they will rock it sky high before all the perennials have even finished their morning coffee. So the winter time is a really important time for them. You might not actually see much happening above the ground, but they are...
essentially bulking out and getting ready underneath the soil. So in autumn sown cornflower or larkspur, it spends the winter underground, essentially pumping iron. And by March, those roots are bench pressing the soil. They are filling up thick and they are ready to fling up thick florist worthy stems while the spring sown seedlings, while the spring sown seedlings
still in their nappies. stronger roots means sturdier plants and let's be honest, the British weather isn't the best in spring. Hardy annuals are the perfect answer to this. Hardy annuals get their roots, they get all the root work done early.
they have so they're much beefier plants, they've got chunkier stems, you get fuller blooms.
and you'll also get earlier flowering. So while your neighbors are still shaking those seed packets in May, you can already be clipping armfuls of color from your flower patch and get the Instagram bragging rights too. these early blooms, they'll plug that infamous hungry gap, you know, that awkward lull between the last of the tulips and the first summer show-offs. And the best bit really is...
is that you don't even need a heated greenhouse. Even just a cold frame is enough. And whether that's ⁓ what I would call maybe a proper cold frame, like a bought cold frame, or whether you've made one yourself, you know, can literally just recycle a couple of windows, lean them in together, or,
Maybe a low hoop tunnel. Even that would be enough because they can really easily tolerate the cold, I would say, in most parts of the UK. Now, if you're in Northern England and Scotland, you might need something a little bit more robust than a low fleece tunnel or a low poly tunnel.
You might need, let's say, a brick base building. But I've made a polytunnel before with just dry bricks. They haven't been laid properly. It's just been dry bricks. And then I've popped a sheet of polycarbonate over the top just to keep the snow off them. So even that is enough. It doesn't have to be a bought one. You can make your own.
So just covering them up will just help a little bit. They are low maintenance and really high reward, which is my favorite kind of relationship, but they don't need a lot. And they're not just filler flowers, they're really strategic because they let you start earning or enjoying blooms weeks ahead of where you would have been with spring sown crops. So if you can invest...
a little bit of effort now into plan what you want to start sowing from August onwards, you'll be rewarded and the future you will be swimming in colour while everyone else is still refreshing that long range forecast and seeing when they need to sow. So let's talk some specifics because you can have the same seed with two or even three sowing dates.
So let's take a couple of flowers. Let's take cornflowers, for example. So I would sow a batch of cornflowers in mid-August, between mid-August and mid-September. Now I'm normally on holiday around those kinds of times. So, you know, it does move around a little bit, maybe forward or backwards, but I'd say from mid-August to mid-September, the earlier the better.
And they really do like to be sowed early. They like to bulk up early. You can also sow them later. You can sow them later in September and even into October and they will be fine. But I just find the earlier that I sow them, the better crops I actually get. And honestly, by late September and October, I've usually moved on to sowing something else and I can't do it all at once. So I need to stagger my sowing time and the time that I spend doing things.
these cornflowers, they'll then be ready for potting on by, you know, sometime in October. And then by November, I'd usually then be planting them out into the ground. So I'd pop them in the ground and then pop a low kind of hoop tunnel over them. Although if it's not too cold when I put them out, I wouldn't bother. I would only actually put that hoop over them if extreme weather is coming, you know, if I know it's going to be
really really cold for a prolonged period of time or if we've got snow although snow does sometimes protect plants from really cold weather because it can insulate them but it gets quite heavy so it's good to try and keep the snow off them if you can and if you're in the north or in Scotland then do let me know if you do cover your cornflower in winter or not or whether it gets you know too cold for you to even plant them out in winter you might need to wait till the
maybe till late winter and early spring to actually plant out. But here in the south of England, I can definitely put mine in in November and they'll be fine over winter. And they will then bulk out underground and they will flower from April onwards the following year. So while everyone else is still searching their shed for their seed trays, you've got blooms. And these early flowers, that's...
you know, early sales or at least just early bragging rights on Instagram, if nothing else, and a gorgeous garden.
But before we even get there, before we even get to those blooms, I've actually sowed my next batch because I sow my next batch in March. And these will give me blooms from June onwards. Now for cornflower, I only usually do two successions. You could do three if you wanted to do, you could put another succession in, in maybe April, maybe late April, something like that. I only do two because that's all I need. But for something like sweet peas, I do actually do...
three sowings the first one is usually in late October and I don't sow before late October for my sweet peas because I just find they grow too big and I have nowhere to put them. So I always sow the Spring Sunshine series in autumn because it requires less light to actually bloom. It's an hour less, it's 10 hours instead of 11 hours so it will give you a really nice early crop.
and sowing them in October again, nice early crop. So they sit on the top shelf of my greenhouse and I don't just sow the Spring Sunshine series, I do show, I do sow some of the others as well, but they sit on the top shelf of my greenhouse and if I sow them too early, they hit the roof of the greenhouse, which is why I have to wait till late October.
And I've even sewn them into November and in one year, December, because the mice ate them all and I had to do an extra sowing in December of them all. And they were perfect. So by January, they are normally hitting the roof of my greenhouse and I need to snip them back, which is perfect timing anyway, because you would need to pinch the tips for them to branch out anyway. So that for me is perfect, perfect.
timing. You can also pop them into a cold frame, that works well. I've done that before as well. I've just literally had a cold frame full of sweet peas some year, but just a word of warning, if you do put them on the ground, just be careful of mice. Now mine are in my greenhouse and the mice, they climb up my greenhouse staging and they even eat them out of the pots. So I'd say be even more extra careful if you have them on the ground. And I will be doing a sweet pea grow along this autumn. So
Do come along, it's totally free. You just need to get hold of some seeds. Doesn't need to be from us. You can get them from anywhere and you can sign up. And you can sign up by joining our weekly newsletter and I'll link to that in the show notes for you so that you can come along. so I would then sow another succession of sweet peas. After I pinched my initial ones, I would then sow another succession in probably early March and then these ones will bloom all summer long.
but the ones that I sow in early March will not be hardy because they haven't gone through a winter. The autumn sowed ones, these ones are hardy and actually by February, March time, they need to be planted out into the ground. So as I'm planting out my autumn sown sweet peas, I'm sowing my next batch of sweet peas. And then these ones,
will need some frost protection. Okay, so these ones, you can't leave them outside. They will need to be in a greenhouse. You won't be able to plant them out as early. You'll have to wait until kind of where I live, probably May time, end of April, maybe beginning of May time to plant them out. And they will bloom all summer long. And then some years, I say some years, it's probably most years.
We do a lot of autumn weddings and I do a lot of August and September weddings as well. And what happens or what usually happens is that autumn and summer sewn sweet peas, are exhausted by August and September. So as long as I sow another batch late, so we're talking late April or into May even.
And as long as I keep cutting them, they will keep producing. The autumn ones and the early sown ones, they just won't. They want to run to seed too quickly and they're exhausted. The ones I've sown later will carry on going into August and into September. So if I have a late wedding, which we usually do, then that's what I do. So I don't grow the full shebang. I don't grow every single color in every single variety late.
I pick the ones that I need for the weddings I have. So if I have a white wedding, I'll just grow the white ones. If we have a colorful wedding, I'll grow maybe two or maybe two or three different varieties of whatever color, know, a bright pink or a blue or whatever is that I need for that wedding. That's a really good way of staggering succession. Okay, so all right flower friends.
Okay, so grab your phone, yes that one glued to your hand, and head out into the garden this week. Open up the notes, tap that little microphone, and you can dictate while you walk, no one's going to judge you for talking to your begonias. Well, maybe some people will, but anyway, and move bed by bed and really look at what's happening. Call out every dead zone where the colour just fizzles out and you've got nothing there.
You know, maybe the tulips have gone, the dahlias aren't quite up yet, and the border suddenly looks like it's basically on a tea break. Snap a few photos of each bald spot and label it in your notes and go back through your photos from earlier in the year. Now, if your photo library is anything like mine, you'll have hundreds and hundreds of photos. Go back, take a look, pinpoint where all of those gaps are and which colors were missing that you really
wanted. And then next you can start to play matchmaker. So for every gap that you've spotted go and pick a hardy annual that you can succession sow over the next few months that will bloom to fill that gap. So just think of it like pairing a lonely flower bed with their perfect tinder date except the matches are guaranteed not to ghost you so that's the good thing.
So August is prime time for sowing pansies and violas, cornflowers, honesty, eschenops, wallflowers, poppies, scabious, bunny's tails, achillea, even snapdragons. Towards the end of the month, I'll start sowing my snapdragons. You can also sow facelia as well, but that will flower this year. So if you've got a bit of a gap, I think you're gonna have a gap, sow some facelia. That's a great gap filler.
And the earlier that you can tick these plants off your list during August and early September, the less chaos you'll have down the line because, you know, in late September and October, that's when you've got hundreds of other seeds and seed packets screaming for attention. So do some of that work now, do the planning.
get ready, get your seeds on order, and then from August you can start to sow some of these. And you can then just coast through that peak sowing season with a smug grin on your face and an extra cup of tea. So if you need a little bit of help with that, then just grab my succession sowing guide with downloadable PDFs, and then you can start planning for your 2026 garden now.
there are some notes in there in one of the PDFs which will show you what to sow in which months, what you can sow when. Okay, so I'll link to that in the show notes for you. So you've got that. Because in October, you are gonna need to get sowing things like Olaya and Larkspur and Ami and Dachas, and you're need to get your ranunculus pre-soaked, as well as you're gonna start putting the garden to bed for winter. And all of that takes time. You need to ease the pressure.
do some of that a little bit earlier. So just remember early sowing it's not about being impatient, you're not sowing things too early that shouldn't be sewed, you're sowing them at the right time and you're going to be giving each variety the conditions that it likes in a timely manner. know larksbarran or lyre and dachshund don't sow these now, they need a chill, they like to be
chilled in the fridge before germination. And I've got a blog all about that too. I'll link to that in the show notes for you. So you've got it all about pre-stratification. Not pre-stratification. Yeah, all about cold stratification. So I will link to that in the show notes for you so that you can get the best out of your seeds. So all of our seeds do come pre-chilled. If they need to be chilled,
we do pre-chill them and actually we have lots and lots of them in the fridge right now getting ready for the season. And then they'll be packed and they'll be on their way out to you all. So you might be asking, well, what if my winters are really brutal? What if they are really, really cold? Okay, so, you know, you can pop an extra layer of fleece over them, but you know, just think hardy annuals, they need to be kept cold anyway. That is the whole point. That's why you are...
growing them at that time of year because they do like the cold and some of them need the cold to be able to germinate. Or you might be thinking, well, I'm short on space. So you can prioritize cut and come again workhorses to give you more blooms for buck and also use a tiered propagator. So you don't necessarily have to just use a cold frame or a greenhouse.
I have quite a few zippy greenhouses that I can just pop up at a moment's notice if I don't have enough space and you know just sometimes I just need a bit of extra space so they're really really handy as well they'll save on space and then you might be thinking well how many sowing do I need to do a year or when do I need to sow so just some general rules for you so in midsummer concentrate on sowing
biennials. So things which you'll sow the first year, they'll establish a good root system, some really good leaves and then over winter they'll bunk up, they'll flower the following year and then they'll be over and you'll have to repeat that process again. In late summer you need to be concentrating on the hardy annuals that can be sowed early like the cornflowers.
and the pansies and violas. And then in late winter, and then in autumn, all the rest of the Hardy annuals, which need a period of cold to germinate. And then in late winter and spring, you can then sow the successions of Hardy annuals and all the rest of the annuals. Okay, let's start that again. Okay, so you might be thinking,
when so all of this might be really confusing for you and you might be thinking well I just need a general guide so let me just give you a few pointers so in midsummer you need to concentrate on sowing biennials so they're the ones that you'd sow this year you'd sow in the first year they flower in the second year and then you chop them down and start again okay in late summer you'd concentrate on those early hardy annuals
the ones that don't actually need any cold stratification to germinate, like the cornflowers and then like the cornflowers and also snapdragons as well. So towards the end of the month, you could say the snapdragons. And then in autumn, it would be all the rest of the hardy annuals and the ones that essentially need the cold stratification like lark's burr, for instance, which just won't germinate without a period of cold.
You can leave those till later, you can leave those well into autumn because they won't germinate without a period of cold. And then in late winter and in spring, you can then sow your successions or more successions of the hardy annuals. But do remember, if you're sowing them in spring, they won't be hardy. They are only hardy if you sow them before the winter. So they'll still need protecting from frost if you're sowing them.
in spring and then all the rest of the annuals or the rest of the you know the tender annuals like your zinnias and your cosmos etc and then you can breathe before you need to start again all over again for the next year. So just a quick recap. All right flower friends so now you know why planting in July and August
So Flower Friends, now you know why planting in the July and August heat turns into jaw-dropping May bouquets. Because your future you is already fist pumping the present you. Because the future you is already thanking the present you. So everything that I've talked about today, the succession planning guide, the Hardy annuals, the blog posts, the Grow Along links, it's all waiting for you in the show notes.
So if you're craving some hands-on help, then join our weekly newsletter at the Hampshireseedco.com. You can just sign up at the bottom of all of the pages. It's in the footer for you. Just drop your email address in there and you'll receive our weekly newsletter.
signing up will drop you straight into the autumn grow-alongs and it will make you first in line for new season Dahlias and every one of our new seed launches. You'll be the first to know. So let me know what you're sowing right now. You can tag me on Instagram at the Hampshire Seed Company. I'd love to see what you're doing. So until next week, keep those seed trays tidy, those dreams big,
and I'll see you in the grow alongs.