Linum Bright Eyes
Linum grandiflorum 'Bright Eyes' -- flowering flax; Victorian antique
Delicate white flowers with striking dark scarlet centres — the annual Flowering Flax creating picturesque cottage carpets from summer to early autumn. Easy hardy annual.
About this variety
Large silky white saucers, about three centimetres across, each with a dark scarlet eye at the centre. It is a simple flower and the contrast does all the work; a drift of them reads as a white carpet flecked with red from right across a garden.
Like the perennial flax, each flower lasts a single day, opening in the morning and gone by evening, replaced by a fresh flush the next morning. That runs from June through September, so the display is continuous even though nothing on the plant is more than a day old.
It is one of the easiest hardy annuals there is, but only if you sow it where it is to grow. It resents transplanting and a moved plant sulks. Direct sow March to May, or in September for stronger, earlier plants the following year, and thin to about 20 or 25cm. Grow it in a group: at 30 to 45cm the plants are open and airy and a single one looks like very little, while twenty together is where the effect is. Lean, well-drained soil in full sun. If you cut it, cut in tight bud and let it open in water.
Plant alongside
Linum Bright Eyes pairs beautifully with these cottage garden classics
