How to design the longest-lasting flower bed that costs next to NOTHING

One thing that annoys me about Spring bulbs in the UK is that they look great early in the season but they’re practically gone by the time the good weather gets here.

So, my plan, when I created the path and flower beds outside my lounge, was to have the longest lasting flowers possible in it that last as long as possible.

So, in this post I’m giving you the exact steps that I took to make sure all the plants I planted would have long flowering plants in them. When I say long-flowering, I usually mean around 4 months either from early Summer to early Autumn or Mid Summer to late Autumn.

By choosing plants that bloom longer you’ll have waaay more colour in the borders at teh time whe it matters. When the weather is hot enough for you to enjoy them.

The best part?

You don’t need any knowledge of flowers to be successful at creating this flower bed plan.

Why?

Because all you really need to know is what colour scheme you want, which flowers bloom longest and how tall they eventually end up.

Not just that though, at the end I’ll give you my list of plants that I planted out with their eventual heights, so you can use it to make your own even quicker.

So, let’s dive in to the steps I went through to create a longer-lasting flowers bed in your garden.

Step 1 – Find the longest flowering plants on Crocus.co.uk

Te first step is all about curating. a list of as many plants as possible that are going to bloom for at least 4 months of the year.

So, head over to Crocus.co.uk, create an account and create a Wishlist (name it long-flowering plants)

Of course, you can use other websites but I find Crocus have one of the best filters and visual aids for determining what you want in your list.

Now, filter all the plants by those flowering in May.

Then, click into each plant (or as many as possible) and any that show they’ll be flowering from May through to (at least) August, add these to your wishlist.

The number of plants you want to shortlist will depend on the size of the flower bed. However, I’d Aim to have between 10 and 20 plants on your Wishlist.

Step 2 – Get to know your Wishlist

Now it’s time to take a deeper dive into your wishlist and start narrowing it down to about 8-10 different plants as your final choice.

Choose based on colour, e.g. you might like blue, white and purple. Alternatively, you might prefer reds, oranges and yellows.

You’ll also want to choose different eventual heights – some 20-30cm, some between 40-70cm in eventual height and some that go up to 1.2m in height.

That way you can have some at the front, some in the middle of the bed and some at the back.

Step 3 – Buy the seeds (or 9cm pots)

For me, I decided to buy 8 packets of seeds because I was planning early (in January) and knew I had plenty of time to grow them. I also wanted to keep costs down as much as possible.

8 packs of seeds cot me just £10 plus delivery

So, if you want to find the seeds, head over to https://www.plant-world-seeds.com/ or your chosen seed website.

Copy and paste the name of the plants you decided on from your wishlist into the seed website and see if you can find the same ones.

If you can’t find the seeds, simply get the 9cm pots as that’s the second cheapest option to buying seeds.

Alternatively, make a list of your chosen plants and head down to your local garden centre and see if you can find them on the shelves. After all, all gardeners love a reason to go to the garden centre.

Although my preferred preference is to do it online because I find it waaay easier to find the ones you need if you have a shortlist.

Step 4 – Plant the seeds in a propagation tray

This is the fun part and if you have kids (like me) they’ll love getting their hands dirty. Just remember to cover the table if you’re doing it inside.

The packets of seeds will have anywhere between 20 and 100 seeds in them. So, now it’s up to you – do you want to just sow all the seeds or do you want to do half and save some for next year.

The other option is to do half now and then the other half in a month or 2 as it’ll help you to stagnate the use of space on the windowsills.

Simply fill the trays up with compost and sow the seeds on top, then water them. Place on a light windowsill – preferably south-facing.

Nuture the plants daily making sure they don’t dry out.

Step 6 – Choose 12 of each

As they grow, you should gradually give the new plants bigger trays and their own plant pots. If you decided to plant all the seeds, I;d recommend choosing 12 plants out of the lot.

Transfer those 12 to a new compartment tray.

Then if you want, keep the rest of the newly germinated seedlings in the

Step 5 – Put in a cold environment

After the seeds germinate, they’re best going into a cold environment.

Thats’ because they’re likely to get leggy, i.e. the stems grow way quicker than the leaves. For me, I put mine in my utility room where there’s very little heating.

Not only will this control the growth of the plants, it will also help them to harden off for when they need to go outside.

Step 6 – Be Patient but stay on top of the plants.

Different seeds will germinate at different times. Remember they going to be slow growing – especially if they are sown in February or earlier.

That said though, remember to keep them moist and check them once a day.