Free flower seeds 2024 – April

It’s becoming difficult to find space on the benches in my polytunnel for any more trays of seeds! Luckily the rising temperature of April means I will be able to harden off seedlings ready for planting outside into beds, which will free up some space to start sowing half-hardy annual flower varieties. Through February and March, I have mainly sown hardy annuals – varieties that are tolerant of lower temperatures – but in April we can start to sow heat-loving flowers like sunflowers which are this month’s free flower seeds from BBC Gardener’s World Magazine.

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Sow with me

Sunflowers are one of the easiest flowers to grow from seed, and their large size makes them a great choice for getting kids involved sowing seeds for the garden! Seeds can be sown direct into flower beds about 1.5cm deep (30-50cm apart dependent on the variety). Water the soil to moisten it before you sow the seed to ensure you don’t wash the seeds away once you’ve placed them in the soil.

I don’t usually sow seeds directly into beds as I often find that mice, voles or pigeons like to make a meal of them! I am going to sow my free sunflower seeds into a module tray with a slightly larger cell size, as once the seeds germinate I find that the roots can develop very quickly and they need room to grow on bit before planting out. You could also use 9cm pots to sow your seeds. It won’t take long for the roots to fill the container, and it’s best to get your sunflowers planted into beds before they become rootbound in their containers. Don’t sow your seeds all at once though – if you sow a few seeds every couple of weeks until the end of May you’ll have sunflowers blooming in succession right through the summer months and into the autumn.

As a half-hardy annual variety, sunflowers don’t really tolerate frost at all so make sure that you don’t plant them out before the average last frost date for your area. My last frost on the coast in North Norfolk is usually around the second week of April, but If we have a surprise late frost after this time I’ll make sure to cover the young plants with some fleece for protection. Sunflowers should be planted in full sun as they will need lots of light to produce the best flowers – they won’t do very well in a shady spot. They are heavy feeders, so enrich the soil with compost or an organic fertiliser to give your plants the best conditions for growing on. Sunflowers do not like to go dry either, so you may need to water them each week dependent on the weather through the growing season.

• Check out our guide to sowing seeds indoors
• Your April seed sowing jobs
• Easy flowers to grow from seed

With the Giant Single variety growing up to 1.8m (6ft) it might be a good idea to give it a little bit of extra support, so pop a cane in alongside each plant and secure with some string if you live in a windy location! The flowers are fantastic for attracting pollinators once they start to bloom, and when the flower heads go to seed they’ll provide a tasty meal for garden birds.

Seedling update

I sowed the free echium and strawflower (Xerochrysum) seeds in Feb and March. I pricked out the echium seeds last month and they are growing on well in their pots now. I’ve started to harden them off, and I do this by standing the plants on benches outdoors through the day and bringing them back into tunnel overnight; this is to slowly acclimatise the plants to outdoor conditions. After two weeks they’ll be fine to plant outside, but I might just leave them in their pots until the sunflowers are ready and I’ll plant them out at the same time later in April.

The strawflower seed that was sown in March germinated very evenly in just one week. They are still very tiny at the moment and I’ll look after these seedlings carefully in the tunnel for another couple of weeks. Keep an eye on the moisture level of your newly-germinated seedlings to make sure that the compost doesn’t dry out and impact their development – and beware of any slugs or snails on your propagation bench who like to snack on the soft growth of new seedlings! A quick check underneath your trays and pots will ensure you won’t lose your plants to a mollusc overnight!