Plant Seeds for a Garden Full of Flowers

To keep your garden filled with blooms, look for flower seed packets and varieties of annuals, which last just one season, and perennials, which come back again and again.

Knowing when to plant your flower seeds will determine if you start your flower seeds indoors or sow outside.

Here’s how to read your flower seed packets: Count backward from the date of the last expected spring frost using our frost date calendar. For example, if your packet says to plant eight weeks before the last spring frost and your expected last frost date falls in early May for your area, start the seeds in early March.

Try easy-growing, low-maintenance varieties. Read on for ideas.

1. Choose a seed kit. Use a seed-starting kit, peat pots or seed tape to start your seeds. If you’re planting from a seed kit, follow the package directions. If you’re planting in peat pots, fill them with moistened seed-starting mix.
   

2. Plant seeds. Plant the seeds at the depth recommended on the seed packet.

3. Add water. Water the seeds by letting the peat pots soak up water from a tray, or gently water with a watering can or spray bottle.

4. Create plant markers. Purchase or make plant markers to label your seeds with the name of the flower and date.

5. Take cover. Cover the seeds with clear plastic or the cover from your seed-starting kit, if required, based on seed packet instructions.

6. Keep them warm. Put the flower seeds in a warm place and check them daily. The packet will tell you how much light they’ll need to germinate. You can use a seedling heat mat to ensure they get the heat they need.

7. Check the soil. Keep the soil moist but not soggy and check it every few days.

8. Remove the cover. When the seedlings sprout, uncover them and move them to a warm, bright spot. You can use grow lights to help them along.

9. Prepare seedlings for prime time. At the end of the indoor growth cycle, or 10 days before the expected last frost date for your area, you’ll need to harden off the seedlings. Gradually expose your seedlings to outdoor weather by moving them outside to a sheltered spot for three to four hours daily for 10 days. Bring them in at night. Once toughened up, plant your flowers in the garden or a container. Keep plant covers handy in case of late season frosts.

Once frost is not a concern, you can sow your flower seeds directly in the garden.

Plant hardy flower seeds as soon as the ground can be worked. Plant half-hardy seeds after your last hard frost for the best success. Then plant tender seeds after there’s no chance of frost. Save your seed packets so you can refer to them when needed. Learn more about your area's frost dates.

To plant, sprinkle your seeds – following the directions on the seed packet for the flowers you selected – and plant at the recommended depth in potting mix for containers or soil for garden beds or raised gardens.

If your area experiences a sudden cold snap, protect your seedlings with a plant cover. Take the cover off the next morning when the temperature rises.

• Bachelor button
• Calendula
• Columbine
• Coreopsis
• Cosmos
• Echinacea
• Four o’Clocks
• Gomphrena
• Hollyhocks
• Marigolds
• Nasturtiums
• Nicotiana
• Poppy
• Portulaca
• Rudbeckia
• Sunflowers
• Sweet peas
• Viola
• Zinnias