A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Planting Seeds

Hello,
I've just ordered seeds....Yarrow Summer Pastels..some places call them Achillea. I normally do bulb planting and container planting but never tried to plant seeds.

Is it necessary to start them indoors or just pour the seeds in the ground when it's time. You can tell I'm new at seedlings.

Help!
CeeView

Hi CeeView!

Welcome to the forum! It's so nice to meet you!

I've started plants both ways, but usually with the packaged seeds I just plant them directly in the ground. I have also started some in little starter pots and put them under lights until they were big enough to plant outdoors. I've never planted Yarrow from seeds but I have bought the Yarrow plants and then just planted them in the ground.

Hi Ceeview,

Yarrow is aggressive so it can probably be planted in the soil. Or what's called direct sown. Here are the conditions you need for most forms of Yarrow.

Sow at 20ºC (68ºF). The seeds germinate in less than two weeks. Sprinkle them over the soil and then lightly press them into the soil. They need light to germinate. Once they sprout grow them at 10ºC (50ºF) minimum. If you are going to direct sow this means waiting around two weeks after your last frost date for your areas before you plant them.

If I remember yarrow are what are called fine seeds, meaning very very small lol. Since my eyes aren't that good anymore I've found the best way to space them out is to pour the seeds out on a piece of paper and then pressing my finger into them until a few stick and then scraping those off in one location and then going on to the next. But then I hate to thin plants so I try to avoid it at all costs. Which is why I'm so careful at this stage.

The reason for the different names is that Achillea is the botanical or scientific name and yarrow is the common name. Almost all plants have a botanical name but not all of them have common names. And then there are some plants that have several common names or may even share one common name between several plants. That's why when looking up information on a given plant it is best to use the scientific name.

Hope some of this information is useful.

Tammy, you are so right about the Yarrow! I was just telling Merrill a week or two ago about my planting Yarrow to attract butterflies and how it started coming up everywhere! Well, it attracted the butterflies but it was spreading in my beds and crowding out my other plants, then it even started coming up in my lawn. It was horrible and it took me three years to finally get rid of it and I'm glad it's gone! I've got plelnty of other plants that attract butterflies without having to deal with that kind of aggravation!

Thanks everyone! All of your comments were great! I really love this forum. By the way...I'm going to be busy....I have 10 packs of Yarrow seeds and yes....they are very small. I guess I'll have to deal with it.

Thanks Again!
CeeView