My week in sowing 6 - Cosmos, cornflower, zinnia and echinops

This weeks 'my week in sowing' is actually last week's 'week in sowing'.  I planned to put this post up last Wednesday before I jetted off to Berlin for the weekend, but as is often the case the best-laid plans of mice and men, it all went a bit awry.  Very unexpectedly one of my friends suddenly died, and obviously blogging had to take a back seat.  But I got up to a lot last week and I would still like to share it, so here is the post in its original form:

So last Saturday I was not to be found in my garden as I had people to see and places to go, and clothes to be bought.  It was all very nice, but this weekend I was back in the garden attacking the long list of seeds still to be sown.  Taking a little break was no bad thing as the garage was rammed and it allowed a few things to come up sufficiently that I could transfer them into the coldframe.  Im starting to sow all the varieties that say 'from mid spring' which is really un-specific.  I would say we are now mid-spring, but then spring only technically started a couple of weeks ago so I might be really really early.  Who knows.

Double click rose bonbon cosmos in all its glory - great flowers and great foliage

Cosmos - Double click rose bonbon. This is not a fresh packet of seeds as I actually grew these last year.  The packet really sells these, saying they are the biggest, frilliest double cosmos around, or something along those lines.  It doesn't lie, I think these are well worth the effort and if I had more room I would definitely grow more cosmos.  The flowers are a delightful pink, good and frilly, but also the foliage is rather pleasant too, quite feathery and ferny.  The only thing is I do find the flowers to be a hotbed for earwigs.  That slight flaw aside these were firmly on my list for sowing this year.  Unfortunately they are quite fussy seeds and insist on being germinated in a polythene bag to keep a temperate of about 20 degrees.  Im not keen on this as I have a habit of cooking my seedlings for far too long and then having them wilt on me, but Im sure I can time it right this time.  I sowed nine seeds on the surface of seed compost and covered with vermiculite - like I said, fussy - and stuck them in a bag on the kitchen windowsill.

Stocks - Yes I have already sown two pots of stocks but having seen the likely number that are going to germinate I want more.  They are my favourite cut flowers after all, and a bunch is shockingly expensive to buy from the shops so I want to make sure im stocked all summer long.  Same method as before; pot, seed compost, chuck them on, you get the gist.

A lovely red zinnia, they tend to have really interesting middles with contrasting coloured circles like this one has

Zinnia - Queen Red Lime.  I am very excited about these.  I have several varieties of zinnia to sow this year, but these are the ones I am sowing first.  I think zinnias make a really good, reliable cut flower and they come in quite an exciting array of bright colours and structures.  They also cross-pollinate freely, so much so I believe it is virtually impossible to stop them.  I really want to collect seed and see what appears next year.  But before then we need to get these going.  Zinnias are beyond fussy and hate root disturbance so I have sown only four so far, one to a pot.  This annoys me greatly.  Talk about space hoggers, I don't have room for such high maintenance seedlings.  And yet they are so pretty I endulge them, spoilt little things.  These will at least germinate in the garage I hope, although I believe they would prefer a bag.

Zinnias are interesting at every stage of their blooming, this one has yet to fully unfurl

Cornflower - These are new to me, and are quite frankly the weirdest seeds I have ever encountered.  Each one is like a miniature paintbrush, only with the handle cut off.  Quite large, they consist of a bunch of hairs wrapped in a partly transparent sheath.  Its weird.  That apart Im hoping these will be good.  Sarah Raven doesn't scrimp on these, giving you 300 seeds in the packet so I chucked on 10 and covered with a little more seed compost and hopefully we are good to go.

Incredible - I don't really know what these are, I have certainly never seen these growing anywhere but I liked the photo I saw and thought why not.  The seeds were absolutely tiny so I just sprinkled on a whole bunch.

Echinops - I tried to grow these last year, I can't remember what happened but lets just say, I didn't get any flowers.  So lets try again shall we.  These will be lovely blue balls.  The seeds are quite large so I buried six or seven in seed compost and they are snug in another polythene bag.

And that's it for this week.  It seems like I achieved a lot, but I didn't sow many of each variety so I could sow quite a few.  I would have liked to turf out a few more fuchsias while I was out there but it was surprisingly cold and miserable, typical Easter weekend weather so to be honest, I couldn't wait to get back indoors.