Favourite flowers

[Moopmoop]

Hi all,

I've only recently started having an interest in growing flowers, and up to now I've not grown many other than marigold, nasturtium and sunflowers. My favourite flowers are gerbera, alstromeria and sunflower. I would be interested to hear what flowers everyone else likes and what they grow just for some inspiration as to what else I might like to grow.

[Bal]

I love most flowers I have to say. Have grown freesias for the first time this year. I think my very favourite has to be roses, but I love aquilegia as well. The leaves are nearly as pretty as the flowers

[Martin H]

I have lots of favourites, I can't choose between them. But here's four:

Penstemon, because they flower all summer long and always look bright and fresh. They don't live all that many years but they come easily from seed.

Sweet Peas, because they smell gorgeous. A small bunch fills a large room with perfume. They too grow easily from seed.

Dahlias, because they are every colour of the rainbow and then some, flowering from summer right through to the first frost. With a bit of care you can multiply your stock year on year by division or cuttings.

Chrysanthemums because they are the quintissential autumn flower, just coming into their own when other stuff is slowing down. You can propogate by division or cuttings in spring.

If you ask me again another time I'll come up with a completely different list!

[RedThorn]

Peonies, fuchsias and pellergoniums

[Moopmoop]

Thanks for the contributions folks.

[Noosner]

I've hardly grown any flowers either, Moopmoop, but what I have grown are sweet peas, which I adore, cosmos (I love their feathery leaves) and then perhaps my favourites, wallflowers.

[Moopmoop]

I have seeds for next year for sweet pea, morning glory, sunflower, marigold, black pansy, cornflower and two packets of wildflower seeds to name a few. I've really enjoyed looking at your favourite flowers

[WPG]

That's a good question Moopmoop, it's so hard to choose! Probably my favourite all time flower is a simple field poppy, they're so delicate yet very eye-catching. Also, wallflowers, night stock and sweet rocket would be among my favourites for their scent. I also love an annual flower, salpiglossis, which look a bit like petunias but have gorgeous patterned veins in the petals.

I also love delphiniums, especially swathes of them in different shades of blue - it always frustrates me that I can't grow them.

[Scarlet]

That's one thing I can grow WPG, try hanging a bird feeder near...they eat the slugs

[Scarlet]

I read Martins post and thought "those are my favourite flowers" and then I read Redthorns post and again thought the same! I love colour and often prefer a big flower but they all have their place. Not sure on my favourites now after reading the others but I love snowdrops, they are the sign of things to come!

[Moopmoop]

The more I think about it there are a lot of flowers that I really like. Daffodils, tulips, bluebells, the list goes on. While I remember, I saw a great deal the other day for 3 free climbers (just pay p+p �5.65), they were Trachelopsermum Jasminoides, Jasmine Stephanense and Lonicera 'Graham Thomas. I really fancied them but had nowhere suitable to put them. The offer is from another gardening magazine so I don't think I'd be able to mention the website here. If anyone would like to know more just pm me.

[Tripmeup]

All those suggestions have me thinking now too....I think I would prefer to think of them through the advance of the seasons....
So for Spring, snowdrops, daffs, tulips and so on...

I do love Sweet William tho; the colours get me every time

[mothhawk]

Impossible to choose, different seasons bring different pleasures and different colours, but when I consider, most of my very favourites are perennials.

The exception, perhaps, is sweet peas, which I adore for their scent and colours, and because they ever remind me of my adored grandfather, who grew them both at home and on his allotment.

In spring I love all the bulbs, from aconite to bluebell to pushkinnia, plus hazel catkins, pussy willow...

Summer for roses, lavender, delphiniums, honeysuckle, lupins, foxgloves, clematis, poppies of all kinds.....

Autumn brings the chrysanthemums, especially those big headed ones with in-curved petals in shades of rusty orange, michaelmas daisies, sedums, dahlias...

Winter for cyclamen, daphne, winter flowering viburnum and honeysuckle, snowdrops....

[Verinda]

I have loads of favourites, montbretia being one of my absolute favourites...at least I have always known it as montbretia.

[boatsman]

I have gazania in planters all around the garden wall. They are in flower practically the whole year around and with the seeds blown by the wind have established themselves around the garden. Interspersed with them are freesias and daffodils which come up in the spring. In the ground I have planted bulbs of muscari and these multiply so rapidly that in the spring the ground will be a mass of blue. I have tried muscari alba but for some reason these white muscari don't survive. I have chrysanthemums in several colours which to my surprise are flowering most of the year. I always thought that chrysanthemums only flowered when the days started getting shorter. This spring I tried gerberas and was delighted with the lovely colours and the height, now they are dying down.