This Week’s Guest Blogger is Mike Rogers an Allotmenteer, Armchair Gardener, Blogger and Sofa Flying Book Buff
On the windowsill
Back in the early spring I sowed some annual flower seeds in small pots to start at home before taking them to the allotment to harden off then plant out.
They included Cosmos ‘Sonata White’, a compact shorter variety, three of which were noticeably smaller than the others. I decided to keep these at home so replanted in a 5″/12.5 cm pot to grow and hopefully flower during the summer on the living-room windowsill.
I’m glad I did as they grew to around 8″/20 cm by early June when they started flowering, and have continued to do so right through to the end of September.
At any one time there have been at least a handful of flowers showing , and I was surprised to find they have a slight fragrance which I hadn’t realized before.
I also did the same with the smallest of the sunflowers ‘Musicbox’, a knee-high variety, I grew. It had only reached 6″/15 cm by early summer then went on to just over twice that height by late August when it finally flowered, much to my delight. The flower lasted a couple of weeks when three more buds appeared, two which I pinched out leaving one to flower in mid September.
Even without flowers this sunflower looked good, remaining compact and well proportioned although it did lose a few of the lower leaves.
I had great fun growing these plants on the windowsill, was really pleased that they did so well and I’ll be trying again next year.
I write regular posts on Flighty’s plot blog https://flightplot.wordpress.com about my allotment. I’m @Sofaflyer on Twitter and in the charity’s excellent ‘Cuttings’ book