Bridging the Gap

At Lambley Nursery in rural Victoria, David Glenn runs his garden like clockwork, ensuring there’s something of interest in the garden no matter what time of year it is. Afterall, Lambley is one of Australia’s finest and is open year-round for visitors. “We do a major revamp in our borders some time during late October or early November when the thousands of tulip bulbs and the accompanying biennial wall flowers are dug up. After forking the soil over we bed out summer/autumn flowering annuals – raised in a poly house – to take their place.”

 

Taking a leaf out of Lambley’s books, each autumn and winter, I grow a small range of annuals from seed. I don’t have a fancy greenhouse but luckily in my temperate climate, seeds germinate freely in a plot near my vegetable garden. Once germinated, I prick out the congested seedlings and pot them on into small individual pots. Here are my favourites:

 

1. Cosmos 

This super productive ‘cut-and-come-again’ flower is another cottage garden favourite. Stacked with pollen, bees and butterflies love them too. Choose white, shell or carmine pink. David loves Cosmos ‘Double Click’. “They have been very impressive. I had my doubts about growing double flowered cosmos but found this to be a good doer with charming flowers on a decent sized plant.”



 

 2. Queen Anne’s Lace (Ammi majus)

With its lacy flower hears, this Egyptian wildflower imparts a wonderful airy ‘lightness’ to a garden. Each flower head measures 15cm, on a strong 50cm self-supporting stem. You can sow seed from mid-autumn to early spring in a spot with full sun. Thin seedlings to 15cm spacing to allow good development.





 

3. Cleome ‘Sparkler F1’

Genetically dwarf, this cleome only grows 90cm tall and 40-60cm wide. Despite its sized, it still makes for a truly spectacular show. David says, “Although dwarf in habit, it produces full sized heads of flowers in shades of white, soft pink, deeper pink, and mauve pink. ‘Sparkler’ blooms well until the first frost.”





 4. Larkspur

Larkspurs are classics of the cottage garden and the new Brisbane series is a great improvement on older strains. Strong stems carry long spires of fully double flowers in white, pink, carmine, lavender, and deep blue. David suggests to direct sow from late autumn until the very early spring and to be patient as germination can take up to 30 days.





5. Peony poppy (Papaver paeoniflorum)

Once you have this glorious poppy growing you will never be without it. They come in single and double flowers; in pink, mauve, coral and white. Lovely seed capsules follow the flowers and are ideal good for dried arrangements. Poppy seed is very fine and should be sprinkled on the soil surface and kept moist until it germinates. Take care when watering as the seeds may wash away with enthusiastic drenching. Once the seedling produces a set of leaves, they can be thinned to 30cm spacing to allow each plant to develop a good robust form.

David is often asked by visitors to the garden why their poppy seed hasn’t germinated. “The most common mistake is that people bury the seed rather than sow it. Most poppy seed is best sown when the weather cools down in autumn, although peony poppies can be sown right up to the end of winter."



 

Where to buy:

• Lambley Nursery: 03 5343 4303  www.lambley.com
• Mr Fothergill’s: 02 4571 6200 www.mrfothergills.com.au