Growing Snapdragons South Africa | Cutflowers Sout Africa

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Leeubekkies, or Snapdragons (Antirrhinum) as the rest of the world knows them, are the flowers I didn’t know I needed in my garden. They come in the most vibrant of colours, some of which blend into each other, they grow in abundance in cool and warm weather, and they smell like bubblegum (to me at least).

I love a snapdragon, but I didn’t have the easiest start. I first heard about them when watching an American flower farmer’s (Nicole Pitt of Flower Hill Farm, please check her out, her personality and love for growing things is infectious) YouTube channel, and after I did some research about our regions relationship with these blooms, I found they were quite a popular flower in gardens in Barberton back in the day, but have since gained a reputation for being old school.

But we’re not here to earn brownie points with the cool kids. We’re here to grow beautiful things that will make our hearts sing.

Snapdragons are a stunning garden must and although they are an annual flower, here in the Lowveld they can last longer than a year in the garden, under the right conditions.

Types of Snapdragons

For those who want to explore the wonderful world of these captivating beauties, there are a few varieties to choose from but for the most part, it is the colour pallet that differentiates one snapdragon from the next. Then there is the height to which the plant will grow as it matures.

Most snaps that you find in your local nursery are dwarf snapdragons; they grow to a certain height and then stay there. These types of flowers are just perfect for garden bedding and borders, especially since they are able to quickly grow many stems which means that in a few short weeks you’ll have loads of little bushes, which will eventually be packed full of buds. Dwarf snapdragons tend to get the blossoms almost right on top of the stem, which makes for quite the display.

The other size is your traditional cottage style snapdragons. These plants produce fabulously long stems and about a third of the top of each stem is covered in buds. What is truly lovely about these longer stems is that they look incredible when in a properly structured garden bed but will also be a gorgeous cut flower. If you are keen on making your own bouquets throughout the summer months (or all year round if you are a Lowvelder), snapdragons bring a lot of interest to the bunch and they also have that wonderful scent.

If you are growing from seed, some of the classic varieties you can buy from most nurseries include Tom Thumb Dwarf, Potomac, Tall Deluxe, Tip Top, Magic Carpet, and the University of California mix. Then you get the Madame Butterfly range, which are just dreamy. These particular snapdragons have open faces, and double petals.

For the most part, the snapdragon seed packets you’ll find in the shops will be mixed, which means you won’t know what colours your flowers will be until they start budding up and blooming. Unless you need specific colours for cutting or if you are growing a garden bed with a specific colour scheme in mind, you can get away with a mixed pallet. In fact, your garden might look a lot more interesting if you have a mixed bed.

Sowing

When I first opened a packet of snapdragon seeds, the size of them blew me away. They are miniscule and if you were to sneeze on a handful of seeds, you’d lose the lot. The reason why I mention the size is because the size will determine how you sow them.

Some gardeners say just toss them into a bed and keep them moist. It might work for some, but I had no luck with this method.

After wasting half a packet of seed, being really frustrated, and actually giving up at one point, I finally cracked the code for germinating these tiny seeds in the Lowveld.

Firstly, cold helps. The times that I had excellent germination was just after a cold front had come through and temps had dropped. I had one tray of seeds on a windowsill that did nothing for months, and then after a cold front I suddenly had too many seedlings (ha like that would be a bad thing). You can of course mimic a cold season by placing the seeds in the fridge for the night and then planting them in the morning.

Secondly, don’t cover them. Some say sprinkle the seeds on top of the soil and then cover with vermiculite to keep the seeds moist. This is more practical if you are using one of those 200 plug trays, but if you are only germinating with a 6 cell seedling tray, I suggest doing this:

Add a loose but moist compost/seedling soil mix to your seed tray
Sprinkle a couple of seeds on each cell. It doesn’t matter if you go crazy, I did and I had a number of strong seedlings per cell afterwards. I simply divided them, planted them out and enjoyed the blooms about 2 – 3 months later.
Put the tray in a plastic sandwich bag, one quite bigger than the tray, and close the bag but don’t seal it. This method of creating a hot house of sorts keeps the seeds moist which means you don’t have to water them and risk pushing the seeds so far into the soil that they don’t germinate.
When you see the first seedlings, open the bag to let air in and add water to the bottom of the bag or lightly on the seedlings when you see the soil is getting dry.
When the seedlings get their second set of leaves, remove the bag and let your babies grow!

Growing

My first time getting them to germinate was around December, so in the midst of summer. Since I had read that these are cool weather plants, I thought I’d kill them if I planted them out so I kept them in the tray (some 5 – 10 per tray!) until February and then planted them in the shadiest spot I could find. And they suffered!

So in March I moved them into a sunny spot and by the end of June I had blooms. By October I still had them pumping out flowers, despite some days getting to 36 degrees Celsius. I admit they are a lot happier in that warming up end of winter weather, but you don’t have to wait until autumn or spring to plant these flowers.

Snapdragons might look fragile, but those stems are strong and don’t need to be spiked, especially if you decide to grow your babies closer together (around 10 cm apart).

Lowvelders, we are blessed with the best weather. Water them every second day, or when they look a little sad, and you will be enjoying your snapdragons for a good long while.

When you notice the plants are starting to lose their blooms, deadhead the flower. This will prolong the flowering of the plant. If you let the plant go to seed, it will shed hundreds of seeds, so you are likely to have these flowers for a good long while.

For those who want to cut a few stems for a bouquet, cut the flowers when the first few flowers at the bottom of a budded stem have started opening. The rest of the buds will open in the vase, giving you a couple of extra days with your cutflowers.