Seeds or plug plants? Both have merits

Both methods have their positives and negatives when you consider facilities required, costs involved, time spent and success rate.

This fellow pursues both options, a choice often dictated by our short growing season and the need to start certain plants very early in the year.

Trying to win a top onion show with seeds sown now, without adequate warmth or light intensity, would be difficult. Nor would I be sowing Begonia semperflorens or geraniums now with plants for summer bedding in mind. It’s too late.

However, the gardening press is carrying ads for exhibition vegetable plants, at a price, and there’s a huge choice of decorative plants.

Watch local plant outlets over the coming weeks for the build-up of summer bedding and container plants, pots of seedlings, mini plug plants, standard, and jumbo plugs.

But they cannot be planted out until the risk of frost has gone. Consider the holding facilities you have before buying. The timing is important.