There are two ways to grow plants in a flower bed : you can plant flower seeds directly in open ground, or it is possible to grow flower seedlings at home, followed by transplanting into a flower garden . Both of these methods are equivalent, but flowers germinated at home on the windowsill will bloom faster. It is recommended to use both methods to ensure continuous flowering in your flower bed.
How to plant flower seedlings: basic rules
To grow seedlings of flowers necessary for your small flower garden, neither a greenhouse nor a closed ground is required, a light and warm window sill is quite enough.
Before you grow seedlings of flowers from seeds, follow the basic rules:
- for planting flowers for seedlings in the bottom of the container or cup before sowing, it is necessary to make holes for water drainage;
- seeds of large-seeded flowers (sweet pea, lupine, castor bean , calendula) are best sown in individual potsso as not to damage their roots when transplanting;
- for planting flowers for seedlings in the bottom of the container or cup before sowing, it is necessary to make holes for water drainage;
- the container for sowing should be filled with soil almost to the brim, the walls of the container or cup will block the light needed by the seedlings;
- when planting flower seeds for seedlings, do not thicken the crops, seedlings that are too tight are thin, stretched out will be difficult to separate when picking;
- while planting seedlings of flowers, remember that thick seedlings are more likely to be affected by black leg disease;
- so that the seedlings do not stretch out, put them in a bright and cool place.
How and what flowers can be planted with seedlings
How to grow seedlings of flowers at home, and what plants are grown in this way? Containers for crops can be wooden boxes or plastic trays with a height of 8 cm or more.
Before planting seedlings of flowers, used boxes, bowls, pots should be rinsed with a maroon solution of potassium permanganate.
How to plant seedlings of flowers, and what soil should be used for this? The earth is taken fresh, containing a moderate amount of nutrients and well permeable to moisture. The composition of the mixture : turf land, peat and sand (3:1:1). In the ground, the mixture includes coarse river sand. Before filling the sowing containers, the prepared soil must be passed through a sieve with cells measuring 2×2 cm.
For plants resistant to black leg disease, one part of well-rotted humus can be added to the mixture in the ground.
In order to increase the cold resistance of plants, the seeds of aster , levkoy, Shabo cloves, sweet peas are soaked and kept in a room at a temperature of + 18 … 20 ° C for 12 hours, then placed in a refrigerator with a temperature close to 0 ° C for the same time. Processing is repeated until pecking. Nasturtium seeds are soaked for a day before sowing.
Flower crops such as : aster, ageratum, amaranth, antirrinum, balsam , verbena , Chinese carnation, annual dahlia , godetia, levkoy, lobelia, nasturtium , petunia , purslane, fragrant tobacco, zinnia, etc. are grown in seedlings.
What flowers can be planted with seedlings at home?
How to plant flower seedlings in peat pots
Before you grow seedlings of flowers for those plants that do not tolerate transplantation if the earthen coma is damaged, prepare peat pots. Such crops include : poppy, levkoy, cochia, mignonette, garden beans, morning glory, sweet peas, nasturtium, decorative pumpkin. Seeds of sweet peas and nasturtium are planted in pots with a diameter of 10-12 cm, 3-5 grains each, and beans – one at a time.
In the process of how to grow seedlings of flowers at home, it is important to observe the distance between plantings and the sowing depth.
Large seedlings must be planted at a distance of 5-6 cm, small – 3 cm; very thick picking leads to stretching of the stems and diseases.
There is a rule: the depth of sowing for seedlings should be equal to the diameter of the seed.
It is customary not to cover small seeds with earth, since when watering they themselves go deep enough into the soil. Medium seeds are sown in grooves made with a marker or just with a ruler every 2-3 cm. The boxes are covered with glass. Large seeds are laid in the holes made with a stick with a marker mark of the required sowing depth, and covered with soil.
How to grow seedlings of flowers at home: proper illumination
Seeds of all flower crops germinate in the dark. As soon as the first shoots appear, the containers should be rearranged to the window. Seedlings of plants such as marigolds, petunias, fragrant tobacco can be grown at a distance of 0.5 m from the window with mandatory supplementary lighting. Closer to the light, you should install containers with seedlings of levkoy, Shabo carnations, sweet peas, purslane.
For proper illumination of seedlings, fluorescent lamps of 60 W are used, it is also possible to use ordinary incandescent lamps up to 100 W.
Lamps should be fixed at a distance of 30 cm from the seedlings and raised as they grow. On balconies and verandas, additional lighting should be carried out on cloudy days on all windows, and on north-facing windows – in any weather. For windows with old designs, in order to improve lighting, the inner frames are opened in the spring.
For the normal development of seedlings, additional illumination is necessary up to 15-16 hours of daylight hours.
Picking and hardening when planting flower seeds for seedlings
When picking, the plants are taken out of the sowing containers and shortened by 1/3 of the roots, which has a good effect on their branching. All flower crops should be buried a little, without covering the cotyledon leaves with earth. Small plants (lobelia, purslane) can be planted in several seedlings. Plants with a branched and underdeveloped root system dive into pots to avoid damage to the root when planting in the ground.
Picking is carried out after the formation of 2 true leaves in seedling boxes, and better – in cups or peat pots.
Hardened (accustomed to fresh air) seedlings are planted in flower beds when the threat of spring frosts has passed (in the southern region this is mid-May).
Hardening is done before planting seedlings in open ground in order to avoid severe sunburn of plants.
To do this, 10 days before planting, seedlings are taken out of the room and containers are placed in places well protected from the winds. In the morning, the seedlings are shaded, and by the evening all shading devices are removed, while increasing the period of full lighting. Three days before planting the seedlings in the ground, the shading is completely removed. The seedlings are well watered the day before planting in the ground.
Watering flower seedlings and fertilizing the soil with fertilizers
During the growth period, all flower crops require watering. Tanks with crops are watered so that the earth mixture is moistened to the bottom, but does not become wet. Periodically, crops are watered with a pink solution of potassium permanganate. Watering flower seedlings is best done in the morning.
Top dressing of seedlings of flowers grown without picking is done once with “Mortar” or “Kemira Lux” at the rate indicated on the packages.
Seedlings of flower letniki need to be pinched, since plants that are not shortened in time (at the stage of 4-5 leaves) subsequently stretch out strongly.
Seedlings of crops affected by the black leg are fed twice with mineral fertilizers:
- The first time – with a solution of 1 g of ammonium nitrate or urea per 1 liter of water at the rate of 1 cup for 8-10 plants.
- The second – with a solution of a complete mineral fertilizer containing nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, not more than 5 g per 1 liter of water, spending 1 cup for 4-5 plants.
Feed flower crops when grown at least three times:
- The first time in 7-10 days after planting with urea or ammonium nitrate (20 g per 10 liters of water).
- The second – during the period of intensive growth and the beginning of budding with a complete mineral fertilizer for flower seedlings “Aquarin Flower”, OMU “Flower” or “Universal”.
- The third – at the beginning of flowering with potassium monophosphate, containing only phosphorus and potassium.
Features of sowing small-seeded letniki. It is carried out at the time indicated for each crop, in pre-prepared (2-3 days) prepared sowing boxes or bowls. The soil is taken light. No mineral fertilizers, let alone ash, should be added to it. At the stage of seedlings and tender seedlings, nutrition is sufficient in the soil itself. After abundant watering with a pink solution of manganese and soil compaction before sowing, its level in the bowl should be 1-1.5 cm below the upper edge. Seeds mixed with fine sand (1:10) are sown superficially, sprayed with “fog” and covered with glass. Until emergence of shoots keep at a temperature of +22…25 °C.
After the appearance of the 1st true leaf, the glass is removed from the crops, first for 1-2 hours, gradually accustoming the plants to the air of the room.
When to plant seedlings and flower seeds in the ground?
When to plant flower seedlings in a flower bed? Annual flowers that are grown through seedlings can be planted in a permanent place already blooming. Thus, the seedling method allows you to constantly keep the flower garden in a decorative state : tagetes, aster, antirrinum, zinnia, fragrant tobacco, lobelia and many others.
It is considered to be high-quality seedlings of flowers for planting in the ground, low, stocky, with 5-10 dark green leaves.
After planting, the plants are well watered and the soil surface is mulched with humus, peat or sawdust, which prevents the formation of a crust, and also delays the evaporation of moisture.
If the flowers tolerate transplanting seedlings into the ground poorly, they can be successfully grown in a seedless way. These crops include : poppy, nasturtium, levkoy, morning glory.
You can also plant seeds directly into the ground : cold-resistant plants (antirrhinum, asters, calendula, alissum, clarkia and some heat-loving plants (tagetes, ageratum, castor bean). Sowing is carried out on specially prepared areas of flower beds.
Cold-resistant annual flowers that can be sown in the ground as early as early March : calendula, blue cornflower , graceful clarkia, godetia, delphinium , escholzia, gypsophila, sweet peas, large-flowered flax, levkoy, self-seed poppy, fragrant mignonette, rudbeckia.
Sown letniki bloom somewhat later than planted seedlings, but the plants are more powerful, healthy and resistant to diseases, with a large number of flowers.
Planting flowers in open ground with seeds
Seeds are sown 2 times thicker than when planting seedlings, covered with humus soil on top with a layer equal to three times the thickness of the seeds. Small seeds (poppy, antirrinum, petunias, tobacco) are only slightly pressed against the soil with a tamper and watered from a watering can with a fine mesh.
Dense seedlings when planting flowers in the ground with seeds must be thinned out as early as possible, starting with the appearance of the 1st true leaf.
Thin out again when the plants reach 8-10 cm in height. After the first thinning, 2-3 plants are left in the nest, after the second – 1-2. After thinning, the plants are fed with mineral fertilizers. During the summer, care consists in loosening, watering, weeding, mulching.
Before winter, you can sow asters, antirrinum, cornflowers, delphinium, Godetia, Iberis, calendula, Clarkia, poppy, nigella, escholcia, etc.
Sow late in the fall, after the onset of the first frost in such a way that the seeds do not have time to germinate. Crops are covered with peat or humus.
In the spring, before germination, the soil is loosened. In the future, care is the same as with spring sowing.
In the care of annual flowers, the main thing is to cut off the fading inflorescences as they bloom. Leaving faded inflorescences on plants dramatically reduces the decorative effect of the flower garden and shortens the flowering period. Timely pruning of peduncles leads to the rapid development and flowering of lateral stems.
In autumn, after damage to the plants by frost, letniki are removed by the roots, healthy ones are placed in compost, and those with signs of disease are burned. The soil is dug up with the preliminary application of organomineral fertilizer (OMU) “Autumn” or superphosphate and wood ash to the depth of the shovel bayonet.