It’s April and I’ve planted out all my Autumn sowed hardy annuals, which included Larkspur. Last year Larkspur certainly got the better of me! I’d tried to grow it before in the past with no success and since starting my small dried flower business I felt Larkspur was a flower I needed for bouquets.
So I stored my seeds in the fridge for a few weeks, this is called Stratification, which I hadn’t done in the past and it turned out that it was quite important! I sowed my seeds in March and waited…and waited. Nothing apart from the odd one. So back to square one and started again, still very poor germination. I really didn’t know what I was doing wrong. Consequently I didn’t have many Larkspur blooms, although the few I did get were beautiful.
I figured out from various reads and advice that the best way was to sow them in the Autumn and over winter them in the greenhouse. Which is exactly what I did. I had fantastic germination and who would have thought that these little seedling could survive -8C temperatures? but they did. Apparently Larkspur quite like a cold spell, and they certainly got that.
They are all planted out in the beds now and will soon be flowering, and finally ill have beautiful Larkspur for my dried flower bouquets.