Under the heading Centaurea cyanus, you'll find well-known bright blue cornflower, or bachelor's buttons. Also worth growing is pretty sweet sultan, a seldom-seen, sun-loving annual that tops its 75-centimetre stems with chocolate-scented, thistle-like flowers of mauve, lilac, yellow or white. Both plants prefer light, lean, well-drained soil.
Excellent in arrangements, these simple, cottagey flowers can be sown in rows or at the ends of beds in the vegetable garden. For edging, window boxes or a rock garden, choose low-growing (30 cm) cornflowers from the Dwarf Midget Series, available in blue, mauve, red, pink and white, or from the Florence Series, which bloom in cherry red, pink or white (the exception being the cultivar ‘Jubilee Gem', which is a rich blue). Both sweet sultan and cornflowers attract butterflies.
Plants with masses of tiny flowers hold a special appeal for me. Seeded outdoors a few weeks before the last frost, annual baby's breath (Gypsophila elegans) is up in 10 days. With wiry, criss-crossing stems ending in a flurry of white flowers, ‘Covent Garden' is an old standby, described in one catalogue as “world famous,” while the blooms of ‘Snow Fountain' are larger. ‘Garden Bride' (G. muralis) has pale pink blooms. Two All-America Selections winners-the double pink G. m.‘Gypsy' and the more recent, darker-coloured introduction G. m. ‘Gypsy Deep Rose'- intrigue me; but at 100 pelleted seeds for $16, they stray from the seeds-as-bargain concept. Annual baby's breath grows best in light, limey soil in full sun, with plants thinned to 15 centimetres apart. My seed packet says the germination rate is 90 per cent, so even seed-shy gardeners might want to try a patch.
Love-in-a-mist, also known by the contradictory name devil-in-the-bush, is a slender, airy plant with dill-like leaves and multi-petalled, round flowers of clear blue, white or pink, each sitting in a frilly ruff of foliage. Given space, good soil and sun, love-in-a-mist will grow thigh-high, its branched stems studded with bloom; crowded in meagre dirt, it shows a few small flowers at shin level. Decorative seed pods, as plump and purple as plums, are tipped with small, curved-back horns (which likely explains the devil reference).
Larger than peas, the seeds of nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) are easy to pick up and sow. We usually start this frost-sensitive annual in small pots indoors in mid-May and set plants out during the first week of June. Nasturtiums-the name means “nose-twisters”-love hot sun and poor soil; in rich, moist ground they go mostly to leaf. Dwarf varieties are best for edging and most sites (other than window boxes, where trailers are required). T. Whirlybird Series includes flowers in separate shades of orange, cream, mahogany, tan-gerine, peach and rose, but you won't get a better display for $2.50 than with a packet of mixed colours. ‘Strawberries and Cream' is pale yellow splashed with red; ‘Strawberry Ice' is deep yellow and red. (Be warned that any nasturtium listed as tall, climbing or cascading will sprawl over the ground in all directions.) For a display of dark, round leaves and velvety crimson flowers spilling over window or balcony boxes, poke in a few seeds of T. ‘Empress of India'.
Dwarf morning glories (Convolvulus tricolor) are perfect for large, decorative containers, where they can be seen and appreciated. Last summer, in a garden full of flowers, a single pot of ‘Blue Ensign' dwarf morning glories, sitting on our step, drew more than its share of attention: the startling contrast of navy blue against white flaring out from yellow centres, the trumpet blooms as big as climbing morning glories looking up from bushy plants a mere 35 centimetres tall. Easy to grow from seed pushed directly into the soil of containers around the frost-free date, or started a little earlier indoors, this sun-loving annual starts blooming in mid-July and carries on until stopped by frost in early October. ‘Ensign Mixed' offers burgundy, light pink and pale blue flowers along with the navy; the leaves of ‘Dwarf Picotee Mixed' are mottled green and white, with pink, red or blue flowers edged in white.
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