Seed funding

PEOPLE don’t grow plants from seed as much as they used to. It’s a pity, because this form of propagation is a good way to stock a large garden on the cheap.

- Charles Quest-Ritson

But, often enough, the seeds don’t germinate or they succumb to our negligence, typically because we forget to water them. It’s hard to compete with the seed companies and nurserymen that offer fully germinated seedlings to take away the faff of sowing the seeds ourselves. I must say at once that I am as lazy as the next man— I gave up growing sweet peas because mice always ate the seeds and I didn’t grow them again until nurseries started to sell little pots of lusty seedlings.

Those little potfuls, however, are usually available only for popular plants, such as lobelia and bedding begonias. If you want to grow something different, you have to learn to sow seeds and grow on the seedlings until they are ready for your flowerbeds. It’s then that you discover growing plants from seed is one of the most fascinating and rewarding of all activities.

Every garden center sells seeds. Well-established mail-order firms sell a wider range of more unusual varieties: Thompson & Morgan of Ipswich, Suffolk, and Chiltern Seeds of Wallingford, Oxfordshire, are among the best. There is, however, a limit to the number of seed varieties you can buy and, eventually, you discover that nobody sells the thing you want to grow. That’s when you need to know about the annual seed exchanges run by specialist plant societies.