Plant of the Week: Coreopsis grandflora

Over the next month or so I want to show you some flowers that you can start growing inside now (from seed) so that they will all be ready to plant out once spring hits.  I have chosen Coreopsis for plant of the week due to the fact that is a really easy flower to grow for the beginner gardener (from seed), they produce masses of flowers all through summer (good to cut for the vase and mass of colour in your garden) and are easy to look after (not a fussy plant, will grow well in almost all soil types and will forgive you if you forget to water it).   

The flowers look like daisies and are often bright yellow with the foliage being a dark green.  Coreopsis is often talked about with the common name Tickseed.  I would recommend the Coreopsis grandlflora and in particular ‘Early Sunrise’ as seen in the photo.  You can get seeds for this variety from Kings Seeds https://secure.zeald.com/kingseeds/results.html?q=Coreopsis.

I really get a kick out of seeing the whole process from growing from seed to picking the flowers.  So Coreopsis seeds from Kings will be on my shopping list this year.

Last week’s plant of the week was Whau (Entelia arborescens), and I said I was on the hunt for some of the seedpods so I could try and grow them from seed.  Well, while walking around the Zoo with the kids yesterday I picked a dried seedpod off the ground under a Whau tree.   

Once I pulled the prickly pod apart I got over 30 seeds (along with a baby cockroach).  So tomorrow I’m going to plant 10 of the seeds.  So stay tuned for my success/failure rates.

Plant of the Week: Scabiosa caucasica

Botanical name:  Scabiosa caucasica

Common name:  pincushion flower

Family name:  Dipsacaceae

Don’t you just love this week’s plant of the week?  The word scabiosa got my attention while flicking through a seed catalogue last year.  Sounded a lot like Scabies to me (that contagious skin infection that makes you want to rip your skin off, yes the same infection a flatmate passed round when I was a teenager).  In fact it is Latin for itch and was once considered a remedy for skin diseases.  All that gross stuff aside, this perennial is so beautiful.  Its common name ‘Pincushion’ is right on the money. The flower has a dome of stamens, which make it look like a pincushion. I really like the jagged foliage too, gives a bit more visual texture to the garden.  I grew them from seed (again on my living room table) just short of a year ago, and they have just finished flowering in the past week.  If you are not keen on growing from seed, they are available at Kings Plant Barn at the moment.  If you propagate them from seed now, they will be all ready for planting out in spring.  Kings Seeds have a number of varieties available (the one in the photo is from my garden, Scabiosa caucasica). Scabiosa can grow up to 90cm high so you may need to plant them next to something supportive to keep the flowers off the ground.

Growing Dahlia from seed

Botanical name:  Dahlia variablis

Common names:  Dahlia, Bloody Mary

Family name: Asteraceae

This is one of the first flowers that I attempted to grow from seed about two years ago.   I planted 12 seeds in a tray of seed raising mix on the table top in my lounge (much to the displeasure of my lovely wife, I wonder if this was due to the other 6 trays there also?) All 12 popped their leafy heads through the soil within 15 days.  Unfortunately once I transplanted them out into the garden, in early spring, only 3 survived.  I learnt my first lesson about spring frosts.  But wow, what a great flower to start with!  The three plants gave an abundance of flowers all through summer!!!  Inspired by Geoff Bryants book “Growing gardens for free” the following autumn/ early winter (after the vegetation had died off) I dug up three tubers from under one of the plants and planted each into different areas in my garden.  Forgetting that I had done so, this summer two of the new tubers sprouted and BINGO, two new plants for free.  I swear these new plants had twice as many flowers as the parent plant!!  The bumblebees loved them!

Side note for the Blooming geeks out there:

Dahlia is named after the Swedish botanist, Andres Dahl.  It was originally pronounced dah-le-a (as Americans still do I believe) and not day-le-a as heard in NZ.