Flower of the week: wallflowers

I love wallflowers, with their velvety petals and heavenly scent. In my old garden they lived up to their name, seeding themselves into crumbling brick walls where they became quite large, shrubby plants and semi-perennial.

I should be enjoying a fine display of wallflowers at the moment, because last September I planted out two dozen nice tall ones. One February morning (my birthday, as it happened) I pulled up the kitchen blind to see that during the night the deer, the horrors, had eaten every single one. It’s a good job I don’t have a gun. Luckily, they didn’t find the self-seeders, like this one.



When I first moved here, I sowed, grew on and planted out two of my favourites: ‘Blood Red’ and ‘Fire King’. Ever since, they have kept themselves going by seeding around; the one above is growing in a paving crack by the kitchen door.
( more wallflowers )