Cornflowers in Bloom

Cornflowers in Bloom

One of my favourite flowers is the perennial cornflower, also known as bachelor’s button.  The flower head is a large spiky cobalt-blue on a sturdy stem, with green leaves outlined in silvery-white.

I like the cornflower because it is so adaptable and can grow in poor soil, hot, dry locations and hard to plant areas, like the sloping garden at the edge of our curved driveway. 

I also appreciate its ability to bloom for a longer period than many perennials, providing that I keep it dead headed.  Once it has finished blooming, I cut it back and it will bloom again later in the summer, filling the garden with its mild apricot scent for a second time.

Cornflower’s slightly irregular looking flower heads appeal to me because they are informal and fit in well with my not-so-on-top-of-it-gardening style.  

I’d like to have a neater flower bed along the driveway, but cannot make any headway with the established flowers and weeds that we inherited when we bought the house.

As long as they are looking alright from the street view, I can stand the untidy and wildish-looking flower bed up close.  The resident flowers and I have made a truce.  After six years of struggling to make the bed neater, I have decided to let it do what it naturally does.

Seems the sensible choice for now!

Photo is mine.