Afire with dancing dragons!

'Snappy Tongue' will bloom through summer

- Ruth Hayes

THE prolonged cold spell that ravaged most of the UK just before Christmas laid waste to many plants in the garden. To my surprise, one that survived was a clump of antirrhinums, which are half-hardy perennials that by rights shouldn’t have been able to withstand the cold

This is not the first time snapdragons have successfully overwintered in our garden. The same happened last year, and a clump of the popular bedding plants came through winter.

I cut them back and fed them in spring and they bloomed for a second year, so hopefully the same will happen this time.

I am adding to my antirrhinum collection with this week’s free seeds, variety called ‘Snappy Tongue’. A robust, multicoloured variety that grows to 18in (45cm), it can be grown for cutting as well as the garden.

Sow the seeds thinly onto fresh, dampened seed compost, add a lid and set somewhere light and warm. Once seedlings appear, remove the lid and grow on until they are large enough to pot on.

Sowing snapdragon seeds