Lisa Mason Ziegler

There is no better group of flower seeds to try your hand at sowing in the garden than Cool Flowers seeds (hardy annuals.) Many of them are easy to get started when planted outdoors into the cool and moist conditions of fall. 

First, not all seeds like to be planted out in the garden, some prefer to be started indoors. The Cool Flower seeds I have the most success sowing directly in the garden are:

• Bells of Ireland
• Bupleurum
• Bachelor Buttons
• Poppies
• White Lace Flower
• Love in a Mist
• Larkspur
• Corn Cockle
• Dill

Check the listings in Cool Flowers for which flowers survive your winter conditions. For those flowers that will survive your winter plant the seeds 6-8 weeks before your first expected fall frost. (See Cool Flowers page 138 for my quick reference list of winter survival zones and page 137 to find your winter hardiness zone.)

Seeds germinate best when the days are still warm–not hot, and nighttime temperatures are cooling off. If planted too early into the heat, germination will be delayed. This delay allows weeds to outgrow potential flower seedlings and other troubles can occur like birds eating the seed.

Prepare or disturb the soil immediately before planting seed. This disrupts the developing–yet unseen weed seeds that are also trying to sprout. This levels the playing field between the flower and weed seeds.

Follow directions whether the seed should be covered with soil or not (listed for each featured flower on their profile page in Cool Flowers.) Covering means the seed needs darkness to sprout. Not covering means it needs light to sprout.

Seeds need moisture to be able to sprout and break through the shell of the seed. Consistent moisture leads to more and quicker germination. Row cover will help to retain moisture and decrease the number of watering needed and protect seeds from birds.

Keep the seedbed free from weeds with weekly hoeing until the seedlings are large enough to be mulched. I keep my fall planted beds covered through winter to give added protection from cold wind, deer and rabbits.

Timing, moisture, and protecting the seeds are the keys to easy seed sowing in the garden. Enjoy!

Lisa Mason Ziegler is a commercial cut-flower farmer in Newport News, Virginia; she lectures and writes about organic and sustainable gardening. You can email Lisa at lisa@shoptgw.com , call her at 757-877-7159 or visit her website www.TheGardenersWorkshop.com .

Pre-order Lisa’s new book Vegetables Love Flowers now!

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Floating row covers in action in winter. We have whipping wind for most of
the winter and spring. Just imagine if the plants had to take that wind.

Using row cover on Cool Flowers plantings can help more seeds sprout when planted in the garden, bring spring blooms a little earlier, protect seedlings from hungry rabbits and deer, and offers the plants excellent protection from cold wind damage. Cool Flowers don’t necessarily need cold protection because they are after all, cool-season annuals (see page 138 for listing of hardiness zones for specific flowers) however, they definitely benefit from the perks row cover offers.

Covering fall, winter and early spring plantings of flowers, herbs, and vegetables using hoops and floating row cover (no plastic) are super easy to install and maintain. I steer away from plastic because it needs far more attention than a simple row cover does. I find row cover when properly installed does the job for hardy annuals and it allows rain to penetrate that eliminates the need for winter irrigation. 85% of air, water, and light penetrate the lightweight row cover–so no need to remove during the day. When I feel the need for extra protection I just double this lightweight cover.

I put the covers on when nighttime temperatures begin dropping below 32 degrees. If a run of several warm days comes during winter that go above 55 degree, temporarily uncover to prevent encouraging plants to grow to big before their time. Recover when freezing weather returns.

Uncover in early spring when the threat of hard freezes has passed. Pull covers off and leave in garden for just in case until only above freezing is expected.

Floating row covers are great for protection from birds, rabbits, squirrels, deer, and pests. Covering plantings like strawberries, seedlings, and others immediately protect from damage. The creatures literally don’t even realize they are under there.

Row covers prevent so many problems in the garden that I’m not sure I would even be farming if it wasn’t for them!

Lisa Mason Ziegler is a cut-flower farmer, author and nationally recognized speaker on organic gardening and farming.    You can email Lisa at lisa@shoptgw.com , call her at 757-877-7159 or visit her website www.shoptgw.com .

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How can gardeners in the more northern regions include hardy annuals(HA) in the garden? The thing about HA is it’s all about the timing of when to plant, providing excellent drainage and protecting the young plants from the cold winter wind.  Find or create these conditions in your garden and enjoy this great group of flowers. You will never be sorry.

Early Spring Hardy Annual Planting

What first comes to mind is that most gardeners can plant any of the HA mentioned in my book Cool Flowers plus Stock in early spring. When is early spring? Up to 6-8 weeks before the last spring frost. The key is to prepare the planting beds in fall and cover with mulch or film to prevent cool-season weeds from sprouting throughout winter. These beds will be ready and waiting to receive transplants come early spring. It is nearly impossible to prepare soil in early spring because of wet or frozen soil and snow cover. More than once I have swept the snow off of film covered beds made in fall to plant in mid-February. The goal of this planting time is to get plants–not direct seeding (not enough warmth for garden sprouting) into the ground as the season is just beginning to head from winter-like conditions into spring-like conditions but still to cold to plant warm-season tender annuals. HA can take cold conditions, sustaining well below freezing for short periods of time–especially with a row cover. This planting of HA is weeks earlier than warm-season tender annuals like zinnias and sunflowers.

Summer with Hardy Annuals?

When hardy annuals are planted “in” their preferred cool conditions they become well established. These well-established plants when harvested on a regular schedule will keep on producing blooming right through summer in regions where summer heat and humidity aren’t so intense. These plants if kept fed and weeded will rally again to  bloom throughout fall right up to the first hardy frost. (Mature plants are more vulnerable to cold so may not survive winter after a season of blooming.)

Fall Hardy Annual Plantings

Fall planting in the most northern conditions can be more of a challenge. The standard Cool Flowers practice is to fall plant any HA that is winter hardy in your region (see pg. 138 quick reference) — pretty straight forward. Transplants or seed sown in the garden 6-8 weeks before the first hard fall frost in time to become established before winter comes will do great. Caution: do not plant much earlier than the 6-8 weeks before frost because the plants may grow to big before going into winter. The excessive foliage will sustain winter damage and makes the plant more vulnerable.  Areas that have heavy snow all winter will have little success with fall planting because the plants need light.

Here’s a challenge: there is very little documentation of how winter hardy many of the HA really are.  Because planting in the garden in fall wasn’t practiced by many and even fewer recorded it, there just isn’t any information available. With that said, in Cool Flowers you may notice that some of the plants are listed to be winter hardy to zone 7. That’s because that is my growing zone and my own experiences were the only documentation available. I successfully fall planted them and grew outdoors for the past 15 years in all kinds of crazy conditions. My conclusion is that many of the HA are winter hardy further north of the listed zone because of how well they perform under winter conditions.

With all this said I would try outdoor fall plantings of several HA in zones north of those zones listed in Cool Flowers with the potential for great success. Using low tunnels inside of unheated hoophouses has great potential also. 

My suggestions to try:

• Bupleurum ‘Green Gold’ or ‘Garibaldi’
• False Queen Anne’s Lace ‘Dara’
• Sweet William ‘Amazon’
• Snaps ‘Rocket’, ‘Chantilly’
• Bachelor Buttons  ‘Boy’ Series
• Poppies ‘Champagne Bubbles’
• Feverfew any
• Rudbeckia ‘Indian Summer’, ‘Prairie Sun’, ‘Double Daisy’, and ‘Goldilocks’

Shop hardy annual seeds.

Stack the cards for a fall test planting by:

• Planting on time
• Provide excellent drainage
• Full sun site
• Low tunnels of lightweight row cover

I find the simply use of hoops and lightweight row cover to provide enough protection from wind, concentrates sunshine, and creates a great environment that boosts the plants significantly. The row cover I use provides 4 degrees of cold protection, but it’s the wind protection that makes such a big difference.  I can double it for plants that might need added protection. I do not irrigate at all during winter because rain penetrates row cover– if heavy snow is forecasted I pull covers off and let the snow insulate.

For more hardy annual growing information check out my Cool Flowers Virtual Book Study!

I hope this helps you to include Cool Flowers in your garden!

Lisa Mason Ziegler is a commercial cut-flower farmer in Newport News, Virginia; she lectures and writes about organic and sustainable gardening. You can email Lisa at lisa@shoptgw.com , call her at 757-877-7159 or visit her websitewww.shoptgw.com .

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Pretty sure you’ve heard me references this before or maybe even whine about it a bit: it is not too late to plant! There is always a flower or vegetable to start from seed and/or to plant — and summer is no exception.

The secret to success for the gardener and farmer to have a constant supply of top quality abundance in the garden is to do several plantings over time. I didn’t plant 15,000 zinnia plants at the same time, they were planted over a three and half month period. This in turns mean that they aren’t all starting to bloom at the same time either–however they all do tend to bloom until the end of the season if left in the garden. This is called succession planting. In place of planting your entire garden at once, make several small planting over several weeks or months. This spreads out the work and the harvest. 

So it is mid-summer here in the mid-atlantic region and what seeds am I starting indoors? We are starting our fourth round of seeds of warm-season tender annuals like zinnias, cockscomb, celosia plumes, marigolds, ageratums, fragrant foliage basil, millet grasses, sunflowers (weekly), tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and a few other bits and pieces.

There are many seeds that can be planted directly in the garden with fairly good success at this time of the year because the soil is warm and the days are long and hot. Direct seeding into the garden works well for beans, squash, zinnias, sunflowers and of course cover crops.

It’s not too late! Plant for late summer and fall blooms and bounty now.

Lisa Mason Ziegler is a commercial cut-flower farmer in Newport News, Virginia; she lectures and writes about organic and sustainable gardening. You can email Lisa at lisa@shoptgw.com , call her at 757-877-7159 or visit her websitewww.shoptgw.com .

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When folks learn what my chosen work is their response is normally, I’d love to come see your garden. Thus, the once a year Open Farm event was born several years ago.

My little urban cut-flower farm has been a “working farm” for 19 years. This means that I get up 5 days a week, walk across the driveway at 6am and put on my working gear and go at it until 4pm like the rest of the working world. This doesn’t leave time in a work day for visits or tours nor are we equipped or staffed for parking, etc. While opening creates added work to the already heavy load–we love sharing what we do and opening our gate once a year is a highlight for us.

Late June is a great time in the garden. The spring blooming flowers, planted last fall, are still blooming (My book Cool Flowers tells how to do this!) The spring planted, summer blooming flowers have begun. We are still planting and seed-starting for summer and will be until early August (My book The Easy Cut-Flower Garden tells how to have flowers all summer!)  Then in August we begin starting seeds for fall planting for those spring bloomers to start the whole process all over again.

Learn about why native plants are critical to establishing an organic garden. Our native 400 foot border, planted to block the view of the coming housing development and to provide habitat is coming into its galore and is loaded with wildlife. The Insect hotel is frequently visited by a host of creatures and bugs–all good.

Perhaps the highlight for many is visiting the warehouse that is home to our online garden shop stock. We do not have a storefront to visit other than online–except for this one day a year. The doors to our warehouse are open for you to shop and we always have some killer deals for the day!

I will be giving an ongoing talking tour of the property from 9am to 1:30pm. Parking is on the street and please be mindful of my neighbors and don’t park in their yards! There are 2 side streets, Elworo and St.Francis across from me that have plenty of curb parking available.

The bonus of the day– come meet Beri our garden girl!

Lisa Mason Ziegler is a commercial cut-flower farmer in Newport News, Virginia; she lectures and writes about organic and sustainable gardening. You can email Lisa at lisa@shoptgw.com , call her at 757-877-7159 or visit her website www.shoptgw.com .

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