by Jen Rudd | Sep 4, 2023 | Gardening Posts
Vivacious new varieties to fill your garden with colour in 2024
T&M is proud to launch its fantastic new flower seed range for 2024, including sensational sunflowers and snapdragons, fiery zinnias, exquisite nasturtiums and giant-flowered rudbeckia.
New range highlights 2024
Salt-resistant sunflowers!
Sunflower ‘Beaches Mix’
Helianthus deblis
Hardy Annual
Sunflower ‘Beaches Mix’ is ideal for growing in coastal gardens and other challenging locations. Unlike other sunflowers, these bushy plants are fast-growing, spreading by runners to anchor themselves in the ground, with flexible stems help prevent snapping.
This hardy annual helianthus boasts great drought-tolerance, coupled with resistance to salt spray, sea winds and poor, dry soils.
Impressively long flowering season
Tough but graceful, ‘Beaches Mix’ will produce an abundance of showy yellow flowers with dark centres from July to October, with each sunny bloom measuring approximately 7cm in diameter.
Great for wildlife or cutting gardens
A magnet for beneficial pollinators and with elegant, elongated stems, ‘Beaches Mix’ is a wonderful choice for wildlife gardens and makes a superb cut flower for indoor displays.
Sow: March to June
Flowers: July to October
Height: 1.5m (5ft)
Spread: 60cm (24in)
Zinnias with marvellous Mexican colour!
Zinnia ‘Macarenia’
Zinnia elegans
Half-hardy Annual
Scarlet petals dipped in gold
Zinnias were a favourite flower of the Aztecs and ‘Macarenia’ is a variety that simply sizzles with bold Mexican colour and make fabulously long-lasting cut flowers for the home.
Big, bold blooms!
This Fleuroselect award winner boasts big, fully double blooms measuring up to 7cm across. Its scarlet petals appear dipped in gold, offering a dazzling display from July to October.
Sow: April to June
Plant: May to June
Flowers: July to October
Height: 50-75cm (20-29in)
Spread: 50cm (20in)
Up the ante with an improved double Antirrhinum!
Antirrhinum ‘Sweet Duet’ F1
Snapdragon
Half-hardy Annual
Antirrhinum ‘Sweet Duet’ boasts improved double blooms and flower size compared to other varieties, coupled with a delicate fragrance to delight the senses.
A pretty palette & petite plants
Blooming in a pretty palette of colours, you’ll love the fruity peach, salmon, deep-red and apple blossom-pink flowers borne on vigorous, strongly-branched plants.
Suitable for autumn and spring sowing, grow in borders or patio containers where you can fully appreciate their fragrance and cut some stems for a scented display indoors.
Sow: January to March
Flowers: May to August
Height: 40cm (15in)
Spread: To 35cm (14in)
Soft salmon-coloured flowers on compact plants
Nasturtium ‘Alaska Salmon’
Tropaeolum majus
Indian Cress
Half-hardy Annual
Nasturtium ‘Alaska Salmon‘ produces soft salmon-coloured flowers on compact plants, with attractive marbled foliage that offers an eye-catching display even before the flowers emerge.
Dwarf variety perfect for borders or containers
Awarded an RHS Award of Garden Merit for its garden performance, this pretty plant will grow happily in beds, borders and even containers with a non-trailing habit.
Sow: March to May
Flowers: June to September
Height and spread: 40cm (16in)
A giant-flowered rudbeckia from seed!
Rudbeckia ‘Kokardas’
Rudbeckia hirta
Coneflower, Black-eyed Susan
Half-hardy Annual
Ravishing Rudbeckia ‘Kokardas‘ forms short plants reaching just 40cm high, each producing over 20 huge flowers measuring up to 14cm across.
Big, bicolour blooms!
Highly praised in recent RHS garden trials, ‘Kokardas’ produces beautiful bicolour blooms of golden yellow with a brown halo surrounding each dark eye.
Brilliant for beds, borders and containers, this rudbeckia flowers right up until the first frosts and shows excellent weather-tolerance.
Sow: February to May
Flowers: June to October
Height and spread: 40cm (16in)
T&M’s new flower seeds 2024
Check out our ‘new in’ flower seeds for all the recent arrivals to our range.
by Kris Collins | Jun 22, 2021 | Gardening Posts
There’s a real sense of satisfaction in growing your own show-stopping display of petunias from seed. And the good news is that sowing petunia seeds isn’t difficult at all. Follow the advice from T&M’s petunia expert, Kris Collins, and produce a bumper supply of strong and healthy seedlings. Here’s our quick and easy guide to germinating petunia seeds.
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Kris Collins works as Thompson & Morgan’s quality control manager, making sure customers new and old are kept up to date on the latest plant developments and company news via a wide range of media sources. He trained in London’s Royal Parks and has spent more than a decade writing for UK gardening publications before joining the team at Thompson & Morgan.
by Kris Collins | Jun 20, 2021 | Gardening Posts
Petunias are hugely popular bedding plants that you can order as plugs or garden-ready plants. Alternatively, you can sow your own petunia seeds as a cost-effective way to replenish hanging baskets and fill your garden with colour.
Here, T&M’s resident expert, Kris Collins, shares a few simple tips to increase the flower power and longevity of your petunias.
Why grow petunias?
Petunias are something I turn to every spring in order to get my garden ready for summer. I couldn’t be without them in my hanging baskets. Trailing types, covered in masses of fragrant trumpet blooms, such as Petunia ‘Easy Wave Ultimate Mixed’, are perfect for lending that luxurious feel to your summer garden.
Most commonly used in container displays, there are actually many varieties that work well in border plantings too. Prolific growth smothers weeds and traps moisture in the soil, whilst also providing a carpet of colour.
Petunias require very little specialist upkeep. As long as you’re prepared to water regularly and remove spent flowers as they go over, you’ll be in for a season of scent and colour right through to autumn.
Which petunia should I choose for my space?
Petunia ‘Back to Black’ produces gorgeous velvety black flowers
Image: Petunia ‘Back to Black’ from Thompson & Morgan
When it comes to choosing your petunias, firstly consider where you want to grow them. Grandiflora types, like Petunia grandiflora ‘Cascade Pink Orchid Mist’ F1 Hybrid, are best saved for basket and container displays – the large blooms are better shown off at height, and will be less prone to weather damage and mud splash.
For a show-stopping petunia bedding display, multiflora types including Petunia ‘Frenzy Mixed’ are the best option. They have smaller flowers and more of them, creating a carpet of colour that will shrug off a summer shower.
How often should I water my petunias?
Watering is very important for healthy petunias. In the height of summer you may need to water containers and baskets twice a day, but at least every other day in an average British summer.
For those that work long hours and have less time for watering, it’s a good idea to move petunia hanging baskets and small containers to a shady spot during heatwave conditions, keeping them out of the afternoon sun until you can get home to give them a drink.
Alternatively invest in an auto watering system to reduce your workload and keep your baskets evenly moist.
Do petunias need deadheading?
Remove spent flowers as often as possible. Don’t just clear away the spent petals, but make sure to remove the entire flower head otherwise seed pods will form, the plant will think it has achieved its objective, and flowering will start to reduce.
Should I feed my petunias?
Feed your petunias using a specialist petunia fertiliser for the best results. Add the fertiliser to the compost mix before planting containers and baskets and it will feed your plants for the whole season.
We’ve seen some excellent results with petunias in our technical trials for Incredibloom. Our one-off granular feed, applied at planting time to soils or composts, encourages up to 400% more blooms and provides everything your plants need for up to 7 months – covering the whole growing season.
Can I train my petunias?
Pinch out the growing tips of your plants during the early stages of growth, and do this two or three times before planting out to encourage side shooting. This will lead to much more compact plants with many more flowers.
By mid-August, some petunia varieties may start to look a little tired and straggly. To encourage a second strong flush of blooms to last well into autumn, cut the whole display back by a third and offer a general purpose liquid feed. Within a week or so the plants will start to bush out again and fresh new flowers will soon follow. Within 2 weeks, just in time for your August Bank Holiday garden parties, the display will again be in full bloom with no sign that it has been pruned.
If you’re growing your petunias from seed, aim to sow plants 10-12 weeks ahead of safe planting. So if you’re generally safe to start planting out bedding plants in your area from the 1st week of June, aim to sow your seeds in the first week of March. I’ll be looking at sowing petunias in more detail before then, so stay tuned!
We hope you’ve enjoyed this post and found our top tips helpful! If you think we’ve missed anything let us know! For even more info, visit our petunias hub page for lots more resources to help you grow and care for petunias. Get your garden ready for summer – check out our summer flowers hub page for advice, inspiration and top tips!
Kris Collins works as Thompson & Morgan’s quality control manager, making sure customers new and old are kept up to date on the latest plant developments and company news via a wide range of media sources. He trained in London’s Royal Parks and has spent more than a decade writing for UK gardening publications before joining the team at Thompson & Morgan.
by Amanda Davies | Jun 20, 2021 | Gardening Posts
There’s always a plant that, like Marmite, you love or loathe, and through the ages the petunia has often divided opinion. In fact, during the 1500s people believed that petunias were a symbol of demonic power because they harboured anger and resentment!
Part of the nightshade Solanaceae family, the petunia is closely related to plants like tobacco, cape gooseberry, tomato, potato and chilli pepper. Here’s a potted history of this fascinating flower, explaining how petunia seeds have been developed over several hundreds of years to become one of the most popular choices of all time.
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My name is Amanda and I live in Pembrokeshire with my fiancé and our garden is approximately 116 meters square. I want to share with you my love for gardening and the reasons behind it, from the good to the bad and ugly. I want to do this for my own personal pleasure. If you would like to take the journey with me then please read my blogs and share with me your gardening stories.
by Kris Collins | May 31, 2021 | Begonias, Expert Update, Flowers, Gardening News, Gardening Posts, inspiration for the garden, Summer gardening
The T&M team, ActivLives’ gardeners and station manager Jackie at Ipswich Train Station
Colour has returned to Ipswich and Stowmarket train stations thanks to a partnership between train operator Abellio Greater Anglia, local seed and plant specialist Thompson & Morgan and Ipswich-based charity ActivLives.
In a repeat of last year’s amazing hanging basket displays, volunteers and young learners from ActivLives have been busy growing baskets of Thompson & Morgans’ best selling Begonia ‘Apricot Shades’. This year they’ve added Begonia ‘Fragrant Falls’ to the mix, to provide scent as well as colour to the platforms.
Begonia ‘Fragrant Falls’ & Begonia ‘Apricot Shades’ from T&M at Ipswich Station
Not only will the baskets brighten up the journeys of everyone who passes through the stations on the London to Norwich mainline, the project has provided local young people with valuable horticultural experience. Participants from a number of organisations, including WS Training, Talent Match and Seetec, took part in training programmes at ActivLives’ two garden projects in Ipswich to gain skills for work.
The ActivLives team planted up the baskets back in April. They have since tended the Begonia blooms at the glasshouses in the walled garden at Chantry Park, bringing them into peak condition for display at the train stations.
Ipswich Train Station with Thompson & Morgan Blooms
Thompson & Morgan’s Horticultural Director, Paul Hansord said:
“We were pleased with last year’s baskets, but ActivLives has outperformed themselves this year, with bigger and better baskets for real impact. Planted in incredicompost® and fed with incredbloom® at planting time, these baskets look stunning and will continue to perform right through to autumn. Requiring minimal care from station staff – spent flowers simply fall off to be replaced by fresh new blooms. The addition of Begonia ‘Fragrant Falls’ should really lift the spirits of workers on their daily commute and provide a warm welcome for visitors and tourists passing through both stations.”
For help and information on growing and caring for your own begonias, visit our hub page for a wealth of resources.
Kris Collins works as Thompson & Morgan’s quality control manager, making sure customers new and old are kept up to date on the latest plant developments and company news via a wide range of media sources. He trained in London’s Royal Parks and has spent more than a decade writing for UK gardening publications before joining the team at Thompson & Morgan.
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