- 18 hours ago
Filmed April, June and late August. The transition from overwintered perennial flowering plants to annuals in summer. Plus dahlias which have been perennial recently because of mild winters.
I grow a fair few flowers among vegetables, and this is a selection of what is possible here. See how they look and grow among the vegetables in summer. For beauty, and to attract more insects.
Many visitors to the garden from July onwards in particular, adore the colours. Plus the three-dimensional effect. Vegetables are low growing mostly, and a fair few of these flower plants are tall.
Is this companion planting? That depends how you define it. I see flowers as a way to broaden the garden ecology and attract more insects. It's not a precise science and I plant very few particular flowers with specific plants.
The exception is dwarf French marigold 'Tagetes patula' under cover. They complement the tall tomatoes and cucumbers space-wise and visually, also secrete limonene, which deters aphids to some degree.
I posted this video about no dig flowers in 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f00IZ547PxE
00:00 Introduction, mid-spring
00:50 Wallflowers, including brunnera
01:42 Rosemary
01:49 Roses
02:08 Flowers on fruit trees, Concorde pear tree
02:31 Tulips
02:42 Irises, pulmonaria
03:08 Forget-me-nots
03:48 Now summer, end of June
03:56 Cutting back flowers, eg brunnera, pulmonaria
04:27 Another look at the pear tree, and roses
04:41 Sweet Williams
04:51 Catmint
05:43 Salvia jamensis
06:15 Self-seeding plants - African marigolds
06:56 Everbearing strawberries
07:01 Self-sowing foxgloves
07:11 Digitalis
07:24 Achillea
07:42 Eschscholzia, Californian poppy
08:45 8 weeks later in August, frost-tender flowers
1016 Supporting flowers, eg zinnias, sunflowers, sweet peas
10:27 Deadheading sunflowers
11:06 Flowers green from bulbs (not seed)
11:!1 Dahlias
11:38 Salvia patens
11:53 Agapanthus
12:23 Salvia, Love and Wishes
12:42 Flowers that don’t self-sow too much – dwarf marigolds and flax linaria
13:02 Cosmos and eschscholzia - hoeing and cutting off
13:37 Leonotis nepetifolia
You can join this channel by paying a monthly fee, to support our work with helping gardeners grow better, and to receive monthly videos made only for members:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB1J6siDdmhwah7q0O2WJBg/join
I grow a fair few flowers among vegetables, and this is a selection of what is possible here. See how they look and grow among the vegetables in summer. For beauty, and to attract more insects.
Many visitors to the garden from July onwards in particular, adore the colours. Plus the three-dimensional effect. Vegetables are low growing mostly, and a fair few of these flower plants are tall.
Is this companion planting? That depends how you define it. I see flowers as a way to broaden the garden ecology and attract more insects. It's not a precise science and I plant very few particular flowers with specific plants.
The exception is dwarf French marigold 'Tagetes patula' under cover. They complement the tall tomatoes and cucumbers space-wise and visually, also secrete limonene, which deters aphids to some degree.
I posted this video about no dig flowers in 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f00IZ547PxE
00:00 Introduction, mid-spring
00:50 Wallflowers, including brunnera
01:42 Rosemary
01:49 Roses
02:08 Flowers on fruit trees, Concorde pear tree
02:31 Tulips
02:42 Irises, pulmonaria
03:08 Forget-me-nots
03:48 Now summer, end of June
03:56 Cutting back flowers, eg brunnera, pulmonaria
04:27 Another look at the pear tree, and roses
04:41 Sweet Williams
04:51 Catmint
05:43 Salvia jamensis
06:15 Self-seeding plants - African marigolds
06:56 Everbearing strawberries
07:01 Self-sowing foxgloves
07:11 Digitalis
07:24 Achillea
07:42 Eschscholzia, Californian poppy
08:45 8 weeks later in August, frost-tender flowers
1016 Supporting flowers, eg zinnias, sunflowers, sweet peas
10:27 Deadheading sunflowers
11:06 Flowers green from bulbs (not seed)
11:!1 Dahlias
11:38 Salvia patens
11:53 Agapanthus
12:23 Salvia, Love and Wishes
12:42 Flowers that don’t self-sow too much – dwarf marigolds and flax linaria
13:02 Cosmos and eschscholzia - hoeing and cutting off
13:37 Leonotis nepetifolia
You can join this channel by paying a monthly fee, to support our work with helping gardeners grow better, and to receive monthly videos made only for members:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB1J6siDdmhwah7q0O2WJBg/join
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LifestyleTranscript
00:04Flowers are home acres through the seasons a little bit to give you a snapshot of what
00:11what we can grow here in this mild temperate oceanic climate which in some ways is not ideal
00:16for flowers it can be quite damp and not so good for the petals but on the other hand we
00:22can have
00:22some decent dry weather as well and because it's mild there's quite a long season of flowering and
00:27this is spring so we're mid-spring now third week fourth week of April and we've had four weeks of
00:35dry weather of which the last two have been quite sunny so the flowers have really come on though
00:39and I'll point out a few that are here to give you an idea and most of what's flowering at
00:45the moment
00:46is well all of it actually it's perennial or it's overwintered or biennial so wallflowers for example
00:52they're biennial I actually sowed them last summer that's a good time so wallflowers you're thinking
00:58ahead same as Sweet Williams for example they'll be flowering maybe the next time we we have a look
01:03and the wallflowers are great because they actually flower in early to mid-spring and there are some
01:10different colors to enjoy although they're called wallflowers because they would grow on a wall they
01:13grow very nicely in borders this one is is a perennial keeps coming back every year and it's called
01:20Brunnera and it's just got that amazing blue color to the flower and it also rather nice variegated
01:27leaf and that flowers for a long time but I will cut it back uh so mid to late summer
01:34cut it quite
01:35low to the ground then you get the regrowth and flower again following spring sometimes a bit in
01:40late summer as well behind me is rosemary which of course we're enjoying in the kitchen at the moment
01:46that will make lovely flowers quite soon blue there's a couple of roses here the roses good
01:52standby in this climate because they fly for a long period of time through the summer not yet so we've
01:57only recently pruned them actually prune them fairly hard in late winter works well to encourage nice
02:05even flowers and decent sized blooms and then lovely flowers on the trees as well some of the fruit trees
02:11this is a concord pear we may even see some fruit on on our third visit towards the end of
02:16summer
02:17but we're having a run of late frosts at the moment april frosts and i'm noticing some of the
02:23stamens in those flowers have gone black so i'm not there's no crop guaranteed on that but at least one
02:29can enjoy the flowers for now uh there's tulips have been amazing this year uh they've enjoyed the recent
02:34sunshine they it used to be when i was growing up the climate was cooler they flowered more in may
02:39now
02:39they're flowering more late april mid to late april and then there's some irises there there's pulmonaria
02:47which is a real easy staple to grow and itself seeds madly so one thing i'll do with that is
02:53cut
02:53it down to almost ground level as soon as it finishes flowering i don't want it to seed anymore
02:57it'll take over the garden and then looking further around there's just a wide selection of plants which
03:03we'll look at in more detail next time including lavender for example little bushes
03:08and behind me i must just mention the forget me not which again is self-sign you know that that
03:14just
03:14does its thing but i do i i'll pull that out before it drops too many seeds but that's growing
03:20on gravel
03:20there there's a bit of gravel around the house so it's a nice example of how flowers can beautify your
03:25surroundings without paying too much attention to soil but this other apart from that this is no dig
03:30sod and we'll look around the garden through the next two shots as well and looking at the flowers
03:36growing with the vegetables in the same beds
03:47welcome back it's the 23rd of june high summer well not quite high summer but we're getting there but
03:52flowering time so many flowers at this time of year and a lot of the flowers we saw back in
03:58april have now
03:59finished and we've cut them back like the brunnera is now cut right to the ground just a few days
04:04ago
04:04actually and so you can just see the first new shoots appearing so that you go through a phase with
04:08some of these perennials where they there's nothing there for a while and then you get new leaves like
04:12the pulmonaria there a month ago that finished flowering and before it seeds everywhere cut it down
04:19temporarily bear then it regrows and it's got beautiful silvery speckled leaves now
04:24so it gives value in that sense as well the pear tree i mentioned and i was afraid we wouldn't
04:30get any pears because of the frost the flowers some of them survive some of the later flowers and we
04:35actually have a few pears on there so that's that's been a really nice success and the roses i mentioned
04:40also wow they are in full flower as is the sweet william that lovely biennial there's a particularly
04:47strong colored one just the other side of these roses here
04:51probably the star of the show at the moment though is the cap mint which is one of the easiest
04:56flowers to grow the easiest plants almost because it just springs back every year from the roots and
05:01when i arrived here in eight years ago nine years ago this was here and i didn't know it because
05:06it
05:06was winter and so there was this ground was bare and then suddenly in april and may this all the
05:13all the
05:13leaves appeared and by june it's flowering like this and it's such a favorite of the bees so it's a
05:17really
05:17nice plant to have around but it it can grow big you know this is one clump of cat mint
05:22that's
05:22slowly spread and a good way to deal with it towards the end of summer is to i run a
05:27lawnmower over the
05:27top actually on the highest setting and that cuts it back quickly easily nice stuff for the compost heap
05:33and then it regrows we put a bit of compost on in the winter so a lot of perennials you
05:38can do that
05:38you cut them back and then you'll get flowering at different times of the year following
05:43this one is more of a shrubby plant and that's salvia germensis that's been there about five
05:49years and again i cut it back hard some point in late winter after the worst frosts and it looks
05:56dead for a while in fact this one did look dead for quite a while and i was afraid it
05:59was and then
06:00when it warmed up in may suddenly we got new shoots i even managed to take a cutting from it
06:05and now we have the lovely flowers which go on for a lot of the summer in fact they're just
06:09that gorgeous
06:09color and they are edible and they taste and smell a little bit of pineapple and then
06:17in the new in the area over there we have a different selection we have some self-seeding plants
06:25so so far we talked mostly about perennials self-seeding is another way great way to get flowers so
06:29the african marigolds under the two plum trees there they sell seeds a lot and a good way to deal
06:38with
06:38that is to hoe them off takes a bit of willpower but literally trying to hoe them all to get
06:43rid of
06:43them and there's always a few that survive and that's all you need you you don't want too many
06:47if you leave too many to grow you'll get a mass of leaves and a few flowers rather than you
06:52know that
06:52what's happening there now is so a few but really fine flowers and there's also a few strawberries
06:57green nice little bonus in between that's ever-bearing strawberries and beyond them are self-sewn
07:04foxgloves which look pretty nondescript for quite a long time so they're flowering now they're really
07:10in a glory way that's digitalis and dropping a lot of seeds i actually try to remove most of those
07:16flower heads before they drop all their seeds because they can become quite a problem weed and then just
07:20select a few to survive the winter and flower the following spring and then beyond that are more
07:26a lovely perennial achillia which has been here for six years and again cut it back hard
07:33towards the uh well any time in winter actually and that's all new growth that you're seeing there
07:38with the flowers at this time of year going into july and the star of the show in the far
07:43corner is
07:44the escoltzia the california poppy which here at least grows like a weed probably will for you if
07:49you if it grows once you get nice flowers it'll self-seed and again i treat it the same way
07:54as the
07:55marigolds so i run a hoe through several times uh it's really persistent and then the strongest ones
08:01survive and you get nice clumps of those flowers uh here and there and some different colored ones
08:07as well i did actually saw a seed packet once that was pink and red and they have kept true
08:12to
08:12color and even self-sewn true to color so they're dotted around amongst the others and those ones we cut
08:18back in uh well in about three weeks actually when they finish their first flush of flowers cut them
08:24not to the ground though leave leave enough stem that you can see shoots and they will reshoot and
08:29if in climates like this where days can be 20 25 degrees low 70s fahrenheit you can get new flowering
08:36in september which is very welcome because in september as opposed to june for example or even august you
08:43don't have so many flowers and we'll see that in the last part of the video where we're also going
08:48to go
08:49into the vegetable garden a little to look at the flowers which are growing amongst the vegetables
08:54uh we thought we might have done it now but actually partly because it's been a quite cold
08:58spring there there aren't that many in flower at the moment but you will see them you know they're
09:02they're kind of poised and you'll see very nice like marigolds and zinnias i hope by the end of august
09:17time has moved on just eight weeks and look what's happened in eight weeks it's phenomenal the growth of
09:25these couple of months particularly for frost tender flowers which you can't sow or grow them too early
09:33so they like these zinnias the timing of them sunflowers uh most of what you can see here actually
09:41are frost tender so we don't populate the garden with them until our last frost date is middle of may
09:47and they go out in the second half of may mostly which means they go out in good time they
09:52get going
09:53get their feet under the ground so to speak before summer really gets going and then they go whoosh
09:58and that helps them to resist the slugs because slugs can be quite a problem for some of these
10:02flowers for these zinnias for example and getting them in in good time will help you because a stronger
10:09plant that's already got a strong root system is less vulnerable or attractive to slugs that's my
10:14experience anyway and then some of these plants need support again zinnias we find if we don't
10:20they'll just peel off the the main stem the little branches and fall on the ground gone some sunflowers
10:26likewise this fantastic one orange sunflower which is multi-stemmed from one seed and so you get lots of
10:34heads and you can keep cutting them and if you don't want to cut them to bring in the house
10:38they just
10:38deadhead them when they've dropped their petals unless you want the seed but they'll flower for longer if you
10:43if you remove the the dead flowers and then the behind is a small yellow sunflower
10:49fantastic again value in terms of continuous crop cropping i was going to say blooming right through
10:55the whole summer and well supported as are these sweet peas so support is definitely a thing to consider
11:03frost and support and then how they grow i've talked mainly about flowers grown from seed
11:09quite a few grow from bulbs and dahlias probably the main one here anyway so gorgeous red dahlia
11:17behind these sunflowers by the edge of the greenhouse there and that one i just leave the bulb in the
11:22ground and most springs it comes up by early may say and then you we you get a frost a
11:28small frost after
11:29that and you look at it all the black leaves frosted on the ground and you think wow that's never
11:33going to
11:33do it and then before you know it's it's grown fantastic so many years of that and the same
11:38story for that salvia down there it's a remarkable salvia called patens remarkable for its color
11:45and that one again left in the ground
11:49just regrows cut it back at the end of autumn early winter
11:53and on that note also agapanthus which we've got a couple of around the garden and they
11:59in this climate where we go down to about minus five minus six maybe 20 fahrenheit they that's not
12:06cold enough to to kill the bulbs so i just leave them in the ground very simple to grow and
12:11you get
12:11that lovely bloom every year and dahlias you can also grow from seed like salvias as well so we've got
12:22um well some actually that one i bought that there's a lovely one there called love and wishes
12:28which i bought as a pot plant and that's an example of how you can populate your garden
12:34more expensively if you like i mean these are cheap as long as you you've got propagation
12:38facilities to to sow and grow and then you've got self-sowing so flowers i love particularly are ones
12:45that don't self-sow too much just because they can take over the whole garden and marigolds for
12:50example the dwarf marigolds um are pretty good for that as are the flax linaria gorgeous little red
12:58flowers just beyond the greenhouse there so you've got lots of choices and then ones that do self-sow
13:03a lot are cosmos so i've put them over there under the apple trees or let them grow over there
13:09i should
13:09say we don't replant them anymore just rather as i said for these sculpture hoe them hard and
13:17take out most of them with the hoe in in the early spring and leave the strong ones that survive
13:22to be your flowering plants similar story for the esculptia that i mentioned last time
13:27so we cut it off early july having hoed it previously to that then we cut it off and now
13:32it's
13:33flowering again so two flowerings from that one and i'll just finish by mentioning extraordinary flower
13:39that i grow around the edges as well it does self-sow leonotis nepetifolia just has these amazing
13:45sort of decks of buds with little orange petals that don't actually last very long but it's just
13:52a really striking plant and an example of the fun you can have with flowers and have a browse through
13:57a catalog and see what you like and have a go but always respecting their climatic needs and
14:02to fitting them around your frost dates in particular
14:06you
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