You can purchase flats of small plants from your local garden center, then transplant them outside.
When I was a kid, I thought tiny plants sprouting from even tinier seeds were akin to a miracle. My parents’ house (and the house I grew up in) is about three miles from a state park that my mom often took me and my brothers to. I remember very clearly her explaining to me that all the trees and wildflowers in the forest there grew from seeds that could fit in the palm of my hand. This blew my young mind and from that day on I was a bit obsessed with seed germination and had the intention of someday starting my very own forest from a single handful of seeds.
While I now know that starting plants and flowers from seeds is a well understood scientific process resulting from water and oxygen permeating a seed’s coating to cause the embryo inside to grow and crack open the coat as a small root emerges, it still carries a bit of the miraculous for me.
Starting flowers from seeds is a way to directly partake in the joy and wonder of creating new life – at least that’s how I look at it. It’s also an excellent way to get a head start on annual flowers for your garden and beds. You can, of course, wait until the danger of frost has passed, purchase flats of small plants from your local garden center, then transplant them outside.
Or, you can begin when the weather is still chilly, and start flowers from seeds indoors.
Most seed supply companies have online and print catalogs with color photos and a dizzying variety of seeds available. Seed packets themselves usually have photos of the mature flowers the seeds will grow into so you can pick and choose which flowers you like best.
Limiting yourself to a manageable number is often a difficult task – and, some might say, the hardest part of seed sowing. Once you’ve decided what flowers you want to grow, the rest of the process is a bit easier.
Once you’ve chosen seeds, other things you’ll need include: seed starting soil, biodegradable small pots (or paper pulp egg cartons), plastic wrap or a plastic dome cover, toothpicks, a water tray or baking pan, newspaper or a self-watering mat, a mister, and something with which to label your plants.
There are seed starting kits available, many of which come with growing pellets (compact discs of seed starting soil that expand when you add water) like this one from Burpee.
I like using paper pulp egg cartons as seed starting pots. You can also purchase biodegradable pots made specifically for starting seeds:
They look an awful lot like egg cartons without the lid. Make sure the egg cartons you use are clean.
Make sure to label your seeds as you plant them. Write on tape with a sharpie or buy small wooden stakes for this purpose.
Alternatively, if you’ve purchased a self-watering mat, place that at the bottom of your baking pan or plant tray.
Just like some people, sprouts don’t like sudden change.
Once sprouts appear and are an inch or more high, loosen the edges of the plastic wrap to slowly let some cooler air into their environment. After two days, remove the wrap completely and relocate the trays to a windowsill that receives a good amount of full sun. If the weather is still cold outside, be mindful not to open those windows as a draft could be harmful to your small seedlings.
If more than one seedling has sprouted in each pot, thin away from the weaker ones by snipping the tops with scissors. Seedling roots are too delicate to disrupt and pulling out one could disturb its neighbor.
Not all seeds will germinate and not all seedlings make it to mature plants so don’t be discouraged if you don’t have a 100% success rate. While most gardeners will advise you to always sow more seeds than plants that you want, be careful to not sow too many; or you may have an unintentional forest or wildflower meadow on your hands.