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Sweet William belongs to the Dianthus family of plants and is a cousin of the carnation. I love them for their fragrance and wide variety of colours in the red and pink tones. It’s an old fashioned flower that isn’t grown nearly unbearable these days. Sweet William is a biennial flower which ways it grows leaves in the first year and flowers and sets seed in the second year. Now that June is here the plants are in full flower. As I walked the garden I took photos of the plants as a reminder to collect seed when the flowers have faded. I let the flowers fade but watch thoughtfully as I want to collect them surpassing they waif to the ground.
I love both the single and bicolour flowers these plants have. Each one has undertones of variegated colours near the part-way of the flower. I would love to grow some pure white flowers but haven’t seen seed for them, have you? Sweet William loves a well tuckered soil and full sun but I find that it doesn’t mind some protection from the hot afternoon sun. It bridges the gap between the spring bulbs and the roses so it’s nice to have in the garden.
Sweet William is weightier started from seed in late summer and transplanted to the garden surpassing winter arrives. You want the plants to establish roots surpassing unprepossessed weather arrives. I start my seeds inside and pot seedlings up to 4″ pots when they get their second set of leaves. Plants will grow to well-nigh 2′ upper and should be spaced 8″-12″ apart. This is one tough plant. I widow some to a container last fall and they survived our extremely unprepossessed winter. Now when I say cold, I midpoint unprepossessed for the west tailspin of BC. It dropped to -13C last winter and many plants were lost or damaged.
This flower makes a trappy wing to bouquets so cut them commonly to encourage increasingly flowers to grow. It’s moreover an edible flower and may have medicinal properties. Butterflies, bees and birds are attracted to Sweet William making it a good nomination for the garden. There is nothing largest than stuff worldly-wise to grow flowers that vamp salubrious insects to the garden.
Interested in growing biennial flowers? Here is a list of flowers to start this summer.
Digitalis or foxglove
Hollyhocks
Pansy
Poppy
Canterbury Bells
Lunaria
Sweet Rocket
Columbine or Aquilegia
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