Sow many flowers for spring

BLOOMING COLOURFUL: Californian poppies will bloom all summer and are ideal for planting in drifts of shimmering colour, or at the front of a border. Picture supplied

Spring has finally arrived. We can watch the garden awake from its winter slumber and have the opportunity to sow and grow many fabulous flowers. Happy gardening.

New flowers to sow now Spring is a floral spectacular! And while you’re enjoying all the flowering delights, now’s the time to plan for more beautiful blooms in the coming months.

Here are some of our new favourites to add some fresh colour at your place. Just one packet of seeds can grow dozens of plants, so it’s a fantastic way to fill entire garden beds and lots of pots with gorgeous colour. And whatever you sow now, you’ll be enjoying for many months to come.

• Yates Cosmos Tango has intense semi-double flame-red blooms, that mature to vibrant orange with yellow centres. It makes a spectacular show planted in blazing massed drifts of bloom, and is especially good as a tall backdrop against a fence. It’s also very hardy, with excellent heat and drought tolerance. Long stems are perfect for cut flowers.

• Snapdragon Twinny Appleblossom. With gorgeous soft, pastel tones of pale pink and cream, Twinny Appleblossom has a delicate watercolour beauty. The large double butterfly-type blooms make an exquisite cut flower. It has a very good heat and wet weather tolerance.

• California Poppy Thai Silk has exquisite ruffled blooms featuring lustrous, silky, rosy pink petals with touches of cranberry and lemon.

Easy to grow and drought tolerant, they bloom all summer and are ideal for planting in drifts of shimmering colour, or at the front of a border.

• Pansy Imperial Antique Shades has a pretty watercolour palette, with velvety blooms that mellow from a rich cranberry rose, to dusky peach, then pastel apricot. The low mounding habit is perfect for pots, or planting in drifts for an abundant show of medium-large-sized flowers in a subtle range of pastel shades.

Snails find young seedlings irresistible, so lightly scatter some Yates Blitzem Snail & Slug Pellets around the soil, which will effectively attract and kill snails.

Once the seedlings are established, start feeding them with Thrive Flower & Fruit Soluble Fertiliser, which will encourage both healthy foliage and lots of gorgeous flowers. Trim off spent blooms regularly to promote more flowers.

Pest control tip: aphids can be common on tender fresh new seedlings. Look out for tiny green, black, brown or grey insects hiding in amongst the leaves. A quick spray with Yates Rose Gun will easily control damaging aphids.

Dreaming of armerias Armerias are gorgeous, hardy little flowering perennials that have globe-shaped flowers that sit proudly above the foliage.

Ten years of clever plant breeding has created a fabulous new collection of low-maintenance armerias called Dreameria. Their main flowering flush is during spring, when they’re covered in masses of eye-catching blooms.

Here are some growing tips:

• The Dreameria range have attractive tightly mounded foliage that grows to a compact 20cm tall and they can spread up to 50cm in diameter.

• Tolerant of frost, windy, coastal and dry conditions once established, they make a perfect edging or border plant in a full or partly shaded spot or can be mass planted as a ground cover or included in rockery gardens.

They look particularly pretty when grown in containers.

• Dreameria comes in a range of beautiful colours, including vivid pink Daydream, coral pink Dreamland and soft pink Sweet Dreams.

• To help keep Dreamerias looking their best and to encourage further flowering, trim off spent flowers and feed every 8 weeks from spring to autumn with a high potassium fertiliser like Yates Thrive Roses & Flowers Liquid Plant Food, which has been specially developed to feed flowering plants. And although tolerant of dry conditions, they will appreciate a good watering during hot dry weather.

Floral tip: armeria flowers can be cut for a vase, so you can enjoy them both inside and out. • Courtesy of Yates