The Eye-Catching Flower That The Old Farmer's Almanac Wants You To Grow

To add a unique and whimsical flower to your garden, take the advice of the Old Farmer's Almanac and plant some love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena). You'll fall in love with its lacy foliage and vibrant colors of blue, lavender, or pink. The Almanac calls it a "dainty, annual superstar," perfect for your cut flower or cottage garden.

Nigella, sometimes known as fennel flower or bishop's wart, belongs to the buttercup family. Stalks grow up to 24 inches tall and typically bloom sometime in the summer, and you can count on petals to be about an inch and a half wide. They'll be stacked together beneath curling, wispy stamens and surrounded by throngs of prickly needle bracts. This annual does best in USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 2 through 11 and won't mind growing either in a garden bed or in a pot on your patio.

One of the best things about growing Nigella might just be that it adds a delicate air to both your garden and any bouquet. Its flowers last a long time in a vase. Even after its blooms fade, love-in-a-mist offers some interesting texture for the garden with purple seed pods (exceptional for dry-flower bouquets) and leaves that look a little like fennel. And, since it's a type of self-seeding flower for a yard full of effortless color, you might find you'll need to do very little to propagate this unusual bloomer. If you're ready to add Nigella to the yard, then let's head to the nursery to buy some seeds.

The best time to plant this garden seed is once the soil temperature reaches 60 degrees. For this particular flower, direct-sow your seeds right into the soil. Nigella has a long taproot and doesn't really like to be shuffled around once it gets established, so starting seed indoors doesn't usually work out well.

As mysterious as it looks, don't grow this pretty plant in the shade or dappled sunlight because it prefers six hours of light a day. As the plant begins to sprout, thin out a few of them so that each plant has 8 or 10 inches of space. Crowded Nigella might get spindly as they compete with each other for sun. In general, however, Nigella will be a low-maintenance annual that doesn't need fertilizer or extra attention.

When picking the variety of Nigella you want to plant, you can always choose based on color. 'Oxford Blue' grows dark blue petals while 'Miss Jekyll Alba' blooms in pure white. For deep pink, pick 'Mulberry Rose.' Love-in-a-mist will only bloom for about a month or so. If you want continuous color, think about planting them in waves. You can deadhead stems for more flowers, but then you might lose out on its self-seeding powers. Sweeping away new seeds prematurely before they can establish themselves can be a big mistake many gardeners make during fall clean-up.