Even though we have a seed company I probably order more seeds than anyone I know. Each year I find myself completely swept up in the hunt for new varieties and new companies and love learning as much as I possibly can about each and every one.
Below you will find my favorite sources for specialty seeds including flowers, vegetables, perennials, wildflowers, cover crops, and even dye plants. Over the years, readers have also shared their favorite sources for seed all over the world which I’ve included along with mine. My hope is that this resource will introduce you to some wonderful new companies that you may not have heard of and help get you dreaming about new varieties to add to your garden.
If you have a favorite seed company that’s not listed here, I’d love to know about it. Please tuck it in the comments section at the bottom of this post.
DOMESTIC SOURCES
United States
3 Porch Farm
Located in northern Georgia, 3 Porch Farm is run by our friends Mandy and Steve O’Shea. Mandy and Steve’s commitment to sustainability is unparalleled and spans every aspect of their business. For example, all three of their delivery vehicles run on waste vegetable oil, and their house and farm are 100 percent solar-powered. They offer a beautiful selection of cut flower seeds including their hauntingly beautiful farm-bred Chinese Forget-Me-Not Ms. Marilyn, fall-blooming formosa lilies, money plant, and dazzling array of sunflowers. They also ship their fresh cut flowers nationwide and sell heirloom chrysanthemum plants in the spring.
Adaptive Seeds
Oregon-based Adaptive Seeds is a small certified organic company with a unique catalog focusing on regionally adapted varieties. Working with a small group of Pacific Northwest growers, they are working to bring biodiversity back to small farms and home gardens. They sell many Northwest-bred varieties of vegetables, grains, and flowers, as well as some wonderful mixes that could be fun for home gardeners to experiment with.
American Meadows
I had the pleasure of meeting owner Mike Lizotte a few years ago at a big seed conference and he was so generous with his information and has been a wonderful resource as we’ve grown our little seed company. Located in the Champlain Valley of Vermont, American Meadows offers a massive selection of wildflower seeds and their website is a treasure trove of information, especially when it comes to choosing which varieties will thrive in your climate. We planted a large meadow at the back of the farm and used their seed for the project.
Ardelia Farm & Co.
Based in Vermont, Ardelia offers more than 60 varieties of the highest quality sweet pea seed, much of which they grow themselves. You can discover some really rare, special treats, and be sure to check out owner Bailey Hale’s helpful step-by-step guide to growing sweet peas.
Please note: Ardelia has decided to take a year off and will not be selling sweet pea seeds for the upcoming spring 2024 season.
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
This Missouri-based seed company offers one of the largest selections of heirloom seeds (over 1,200 varieties of vegetables, flowers, and herbs) in the country. Owners Jere and Emily Gettle are incredibly dedicated to seed preservation and education. Their catalog is the best on the market, and they mail them to over a million people annually.
Blomma Flower Farm
Tiffany Jones is a zinnia breeder located in Nevada who is focused on developing a new line of zinnias in soft pastel colors and unique forms. Tiffany is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate and generously shares what she knows, which is so refreshing in the plant breeding world. She sells limited quantities of her breeding seeds through a yearly fundraiser, so make sure you’re signed up for her newsletter to get all of the details. If you’re interested in zinnia breeding, check out her comprehensive book, The Zinnia Breeder’s Handbook.
Photo above copyright Graham Chase.
Botanical Interests
This long-standing Colorado seed company offers a great selection of both heirloom and newer varieties in the most beautifully designed packets. In addition to beautiful botanical illustrations by a wide range of artists, packets include garden history, landscape ideas, recipes, and fun facts. The company offers an inspiring range of wildflower mixes, as well.
Dawn Creek Farm
Kori Hargreaves grows and breeds flowers in the mountains of Santa Cruz, California. She is one of the most magical souls that I’ve ever met and has greatly influenced my work as a flower breeder. Kori has offered her breeding through a yearly fundraiser—sign up for her newsletter to learn more. I’m so excited that we’ll be offering four of her special zinnias as part of the Floret Originals release. You can read a full interview with Kori here.
Grand Prismatic
I first learned about Grand Prismatic Seed when researching dye plants to add to our garden. I have always been fascinated by the art of natural dyeing and was on the hunt for suitable flower varieties that could be grown from seed. Located in Utah, they focus on open-pollinated seeds that are grown using organic practices. They have a great range of plants for natural dyeing and a variety of unusual offerings, including native desert plants and medicinal herbs, that thrive in harsh climates. You can read a full interview with them here.
High Mowing Organic Seeds
This well-respected Vermont-based company is a go-to source for organic vegetable, flower, and herb seeds with more than 700 heirloom and open-pollinated varieties in their catalog.
Johnny’s Selected Seeds
I can’t say enough good things about this company! Johnny’s has been serving market gardeners since the early 1970s. They offer an insane range of vegetable, herb, and cut flower seed, along with tools and supplies—hoop house benders, bouquet sleeves, seed-starting supplies, and high-quality hand tools.
Chris and I had the pleasure of visiting their trial farm and shipping warehouse several years back, and we were blown away by the level of quality and care that goes into everything that they do. Cut flower seed manager Hillary Alger (pictured above) has done a fantastic job expanding their range of flower seeds and supplies over the last few years, and I’m excited to see what she has in store for the future.
Peace Seedlings
I found out about this obscure little seed company down in Oregon’s Willamette Valley through Eric who heads up our seed-growing efforts here at Floret. They are delightfully old school—their blog also functions as their catalog, and to place an order, you have to mail in a handwritten list of what you want along with a check or cash, which I love! Peace Seedlings specializes in breeding for diversity rather than uniformity, so if you’re on the hunt for some unusual and unique new treasures, look no further. They have some wild, psychedelic zinnia mixes, and their farm-bred snow and snap pea varieties are beautiful and delicious. You can read a full interview with them here.
Renee’s Garden
For as long as I can remember, our local garden centers and nurseries have carried Renee’s beautiful seed packets. I love her custom flower and vegetable mixes because they allow you to try a wide range of varieties without having to order a bunch of individual packets—they are the perfect solution for backyard gardens. In addition, her wildflower scatter gardens make the perfect gift.
Seed Savers Exchange
Long-standing champions of preserving heirloom varieties, this Iowa-based company stewards a very large and interesting collection. They offer a wide range of vegetables and flowers on their website, but a wider selection is available through the Seed Exchange—a large nationwide group of home gardeners who grow a small number of varieties and provide them to members of the exchange for a small fee. The exchange catalog is extensive and if you like seed stories, this is full of them.
Select Seeds
This Connecticut-based company specializes in old-fashioned and fragrant flowers. They have an incredible selection of heirloom varieties that you can’t find anywhere else. I always discover new treasures to add to my garden in their catalog which you absolutely must sign up for!
Siskiyou Seeds
This wonderful little regional seed company produces many of the open-pollinated and heirloom flower, vegetable, herb, and grain seeds that they sell. Located in Southwest Oregon, Siskiyou Seeds uses organic practices and biodynamic methods on their farm.
Snake River Seed Cooperative
Snake River has developed a regional seed hub in Boise, Idaho, and focuses on varieties adapted for the high desert. They work with small family farms in the West and share their seed-saving knowledge with the goal of strengthening regional seed systems. Their catalog is full of native plants that pollinators love, as well as vegetables and herbs for the garden. They have also written a printable seed-saving guide that is available on their website.
Sunflower Steve Seed Co.
Steve Kaufer, aka Sunflower Steve, is a flower grower and sunflower breeder located in Wisconsin. Steve reached out to us a few years ago with photos of some very unique sunflowers he had been working on, a result of some rogue plants in his fields. I urged him to pursue his breeding work, and he now has his own seed company. Steve currently offers a beautiful mix of his breeding stock called Van Gogh’s Fantasy Mix, and has numerous new varieties in the works. If you love sunflowers, be sure to visit his website and sign up for his newsletter to stay up to date on his seed sales.
Swallowtail Garden Seeds
Swallowtail’s calling card is their wide range of varieties, especially when it comes to flower seeds. This is a great place to go for unusual novelties, and they have exciting new introductions every year.
Territorial Seed Co.
This Oregon-based company offers a good selection of garden flowers and herbs, and they trial all the seeds they offer at their farm. They have a new section on their website called Garden Planner that has loads of helpful information on insect pests, beneficial insects, and plant diseases, along with garden plans and videos.
Truelove Seeds
Truelove Seeds is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is named after founder Owen Taylor’s Great Great Great Grandmother Leticia Truelove. They offer a collection of flower and vegetable varieties grown by over 50 small farmers that were suggested by customers and partner farms as being culturally important to their communities, providing an agricultural, culinary, or aesthetic link to home. Truelove Seeds has developed a generous profit share with growers, returning 50 percent of packet sales to the seed grower.
Uprising Seeds
This family-run organic seed farm in Washington State has led the way with organic flower seed production and offers a beautiful range of more than 150 varieties for cutting, all of which are open-pollinated. They also have a great selection of vegetables, grains, and herbs. I love their seed descriptions—each one is a story in itself and includes how they discovered the variety, interesting facts, and great planting tips.
Wild Garden Seed
Owners Frank and Karen Morton have been our seed-growing mentors for years now and have generously shared so much of their hard-won knowledge with us. Frank is one of the most prolific lettuce seed breeders in the world, and his catalog boasts more than 140 varieties! They also have a wonderful range of organic flower seeds, including many that are quite rare and obscure.
INTERNATIONAL SOURCES
For international readers looking for specialty seeds, we’ve compiled a list of sources that have been recommended to us over the years. But please note that, while I have ordered from the U.S. suppliers listed above, I do not have any firsthand experience ordering from these companies, so I cannot vouch for their quality or service.
U.K.
Alma | Proust
I have been following Milli Proust for years on Instagram and was so excited when she decided to start offering seeds. Milli recently joined forces with Paris Alma to further expand the cottage business which includes a small flower farm, floral design services, and a seed and garden shop. Their current collection includes more than 70 varieties that are easy to grow and great for design work. Each seed packet has a colorful, painted illustration of the variety plus a simple sowing guide.
Chiltern Seeds
This U.K.-based company has been offering rare specialty varieties since 1975. They have a great selection of flower, vegetable, and herb seeds, along with grasses and wildflowers. They are my go-to source for hard-to-find cut flower varieties that you can’t get anywhere else, and their customer service is great.
Grace Alexander Flowers
Grace won a scholarship to attend one of our in-person workshops in 2017 and has since gone on to start her own seed company. If you want to be seriously inspired with a big ol’ dose of beauty, be sure to check out her website, where she offers a small range of sweet pea seed plus seeds for natural dye plants. In order to access her garden-grown seed offering, you have to be part of her membership site, Gather.
Green & Gorgeous
We had the incredible pleasure of getting to visit Green & Gorgeous on our epic trip through England in 2019. Rachel Siegfried (pictured above) is a gifted farmer-florist and recently released a line of specialty seed that she has grown and harvested on her flower farm. Each variety is chosen for its “growability,” floral design attributes, and specific color and form. Rachel’s photos are heartbreakingly beautiful, and her perennial selection is incredibly inspiring. I can’t wait to see where she takes her seed line in the future, and I only wish I could get my hands on these treasured varieties.
Roger Parsons Sweet Peas
I have been pen pals with Roger Parsons—and a loyal customer—for many years, and he has taught me a great deal about growing sweet peas for seed. I had the chance to visit his farm (pictured above) in Sussex on our trip to England, and it was one of the highlights of the trip. In addition to being a world-renowned sweet pea expert and author (Sweet Peas: An Essential Guide), he has also won numerous awards. He is the custodian of the National Collection of sweet peas and offers a staggering number of varieties through his mail-order seed company. If you love sweet peas, you will lose your mind over his website and catalog.
Sarah Raven
Internationally renowned gardener, author, and BBC television host Sarah Raven has long led the way when it comes to cut flowers. Her books The Cutting Garden and Grow Your Own Cut Flowers gave me my start in flower growing and arranging with seasonal flowers. So many people have her to thank for sparking the seasonal flower movement. Sarah conducts extensive flower and vegetable trials at her famous Perch Hill farm and school, which we had the chance to visit in 2019, and it was even more magical than I expected. Her website and catalogs are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, and you can easily get lost for hours in the pages. Photo above copyright Jonathan Buckley.
Higgledy Garden
From his cutting garden in Cornwall, Benjamin Ranyard sells seeds from flowers chosen for their color, form, texture, vase life, height, and strong stems. He also writes a blog to help new growers.
Kings Seeds
Based in Essex, Kings offers a large range of seed selected with commercial growers in mind. Bedding plants and cut flower varieties are listed together, so be careful when making selections.
Moles Seeds
Moles, also in Essex, has a huge range of flower seed, categorized by annuals, perennials, and biennials. It’s helpful to have a look at their cultural guide, “Cut flowers from seed.”
Mr. Fothergill’s
This well-known, second-generation company based in Suffolk caters to home gardeners and sells seed to more than 30 countries. They have a great selection of flower seeds and detailed growing information on their website. Check the end of the list for RHS flower seeds, including pollinator and bird mixes.
Nicky’s Nursery
This family-owned business in Kent sells to both home gardeners and commercial growers and offers vegetable, herb, grass, and flower seeds. The bedding plants and cut flowers are listed together, so check your varieties carefully. They also offer wildflower seed.
Plants of Distinction
This company in Suffolk, at one time the largest supplier of the Himalayan blue poppy, still works with specialist collectors. It’s a family-run business with a ton of great cut flower varieties growers are looking for.
Swan Cottage Flowers
Zoe Woodward in Stoke Hammond, Buckinghamshire, grows flowers for her wedding design business. Her social media and Pinterest accounts are super-helpful, especially if you want to grow for weddings. Sign up for her VIP email list for her seed sales.
Suttons
Founded in 1806 and based in Devon, this internationally known company offers a wide range of garden seed, along with tools and supplies.
Thompson & Morgan
Founded in 1855, this well-known company based in Suffolk offers a wide range of garden products, including a good selection of annual and perennial flowers, plus wildflower seed mixes. The website includes a lot of great growing tips.
Unwins
Founded in 1903 and based in Cambridgeshire, Unwins originally specialized in flower seed and later expanded to include vegetable seed and other products. They continue to develop sweet pea varieties, and their site lists more than 90 sweet peas along with other flowers, with helpful categorization and search filters.
Woolmans
This long-standing company, founded in 1881 and based in Suffolk, is the place for chrysanthemum cuttings. Mums are their specialty, and they offer young plants in more than 150 varieties; be sure to choose cut flower types.
Europe
Graines Voltz
This French company supplies plugs (small rooted plants) to the trade. You can browse the website in French, German, Spanish, or Italian, and search for specific varieties or scroll through the varieties listed by genus.
Jelitto
Based in Germany, Jelitto offers an incredible range of perennial and biennial seeds, including a huge number of long-stemmed columbines. If you are a beginning gardener, their website and catalog might be intimidating because all of the plants are listed with their Latin names. They have amazing seed-starting instructions including all of the special tricks needed for starting perennials.
Muller Seeds
This Dutch company lists more than 600 varieties of cut flower seed on its website. Perennials, sunflowers, sweet peas, ornamental grasses, and flowers good for drying are all listed in separate categories.
Bingenheimer Saatgut
This German company offers only open-pollinated vegetable, flower, and herb varieties of organic seeds and plants, working with a network of organic and biodynamic seed producers. Charts on the website show sowing, planting, and blooming times for each variety.
Seedaholic
This seed company in Galway, Ireland, offers almost 2,500 varieties, and you can search flower varieties using many categories, including foliage and fillers, dried flowers, natural dyes, sowing month, and more. While you’re looking for flowers, check out the “Ancient Crops” list under the Edibles tab.
Silene
This small Belgian nursery outside Brussels specializes in annuals and biennials. The owners love old-fashioned flowers, appreciate pollinators, and grow more than 500 varieties.
Vreeken’s Seeds
Founded in 1926, this third-generation Dutch company works with both home gardeners and commercial growers. They offer more than 1,700 annual and perennial flower seeds, along with many different seed mixes, including one for dried flowers.
Canada
Johnny’s Selected Seed
Hands down the best garden company in the U.S., and they ship to Canada. They cater primarily to market gardeners, but their selection and online technical growing information can’t be beat. Johnny’s offers an insane range of vegetable, herb, and cut flower seed, along with tools and supplies—hoop-house benders, bouquet sleeves, seed-starting supplies, and high-quality hand tools. They have everything you need, and the quality is great.
Renee’s Garden Seed
Based in the U.S., Renee’s ships throughout Canada. The longtime standard at locally operated garden centers, Renee’s really caters to backyard gardeners. I love her custom flower and vegetable mixes because you can try a lot of varieties without having to order a bunch of different packets. Her wildflower scatter gardens are a great invention.
West Coast Seeds
This fourth-generation family-owned company in British Columbia promotes organic growing and sustainable agriculture. They have a nice selection of untreated, non-GMO seeds for flowers, herbs, and grasses that can be used as cut materials.
William Dam Seeds
This Ontario-based, family-run company was founded by Dutch immigrants William and Rene Dam in 1959. They offer a long list of cut flower and herb seeds, including many fantastic, hard-to-find specialties.
Veseys Seeds
Family-owned for 80 years, this company on Prince Edward Island is geared toward home gardeners. They offer flower and herb seed, great wildflower seed mixes, seed-starting supplies, and backyard-scale season extension equipment.
Australia
Australian Seed
Based in Western Australia, this company specializes in Australian native seeds. They carry a wide selection of flowers, as well as vegetables and seeds for medicinal plants.
The Climbing Fig
The Climbing Fig, based in New South Wales, offers a great selection of cut flower seed, including many specialties, and you can browse seeds by color, season, and region. They also offer a wide range of propagation supplies, and the website is very easy to use.
Diggers
The Diggers Club, Australia’s largest gardening club, has a huge range of garden and cut flower seed varieties. There’s a ton of helpful growing information on the website, including some of the videos from their excellent YouTube channel.
Lambley Nursery
Owner David Glenn is known internationally for his emphasis on sustainable gardening, and the company’s garden complex in Central Victoria, which feeds four generations of the family, draws visitors from around the world. Lambley offers a great selection of cut flower seed.
Royston Petrie
This second-generation, family-owned wholesale supplier in New South Wales sells to both commercial growers and home gardeners. They offer more than 800 varieties of flowering plants, and their website shows the availability status of each one.
The Seed Collection
This Victoria-based company offers chemical-free heirloom, open-pollinated, non-hybrid, and non-GMO seeds, including a good selection of cut flower seeds, as well as seed collections.
Southern Harvest
This company in Tasmania carries a nice selection of cottage garden flower seeds, plus a long list of herbs, and some natives that are really useful as cut flowers. A great site for cut flower growers.
New Zealand
Egmont Seeds
This family-owned company in New Plymouth caters to home gardeners and emphasizes customer service. They offer more than 500 types of flower seeds, as well as seeds for herbs and New Zealand native plants.
Emerden
After years of planning, Tikorangi farmer-florist Sarah Hawkless has just begun offering flower seed. Subscribe to her newsletter for information updates. (And check out her gorgeous dried flower bouquets.)
Garden Post
This family-owned company in Tauranga offers 33 types of sweet pea seeds, as well as more than 100 varieties of flower seed, with cutting and garden types listed together.
Dr Keith Hammett
Keith Hammett is a world-renowned breeder in Auckland best known for his contributions to sweet peas, dahlias, and clivia and sells seeds for these flowers and amaryllis on his website. His sweet pea varieties are amazing!
Kings Seeds
This company based in Katikati has a huge list and range of seeds—everything from flowers to animal grazing mixes. The website offers helpful search filters: hardiness, light needs, type of use, color, height, and sowing time.
Nourish Gardens
Christy Ralphs operates this diversified farm on Waiheke Island, with specialty cut flower production, a small-scale food forest, medicinal gardens, and more. She documents her work through writing and photos and offers a beautifully curated collection of seeds.
Owairaka Seeds
This small company in Auckland specializes in rare and hard-to-find perennial seeds, and they also offer some annuals and biennials.
Puriri Lane
Longtime Floret supporters Deb and Clive Sisam own and operate a plant nursery and display garden near Auckland, New Zealand. They specialize in hard-to-find annuals and perennials that they ship across the country. Their online shop has a nice selection of sweet peas and annual flowering plants along with gifts and gardening books.
South Africa
Ball Straathof
This third-generation company in Gauteng partners with Ball Horticultural in the U.S. They offer a good selection of cut flower seeds and plugs (small rooted plants) to commercial growers.
Seeds for Africa
Located in Capetown, this company, founded in 2011, has a catalog of more than 2,600 seeds, including indigenous African varieties. They sell on eBay and offer many favorite cut flower varieties.
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Paula Glackin on
Songbird Seeds is newish to our area, she is over on West Kamb, and specializes in sweet pea seeds. Songbirdseeds.com. She also grows and designs/makes bouquets for wedding – that aspect of her business is called Diadem Flower Co. Diademflowers.com.