Stocks Night Scented Lavender

Be clear about what you are buying, because it disappoints people who are not. By day this is a low, slightly straggly mound of grey-green leaves with small pale lavender flowers half shut against the sun. It is not a plant anyone would look at twice.

Then the light goes, the air cools, the flowers open, and it produces the strongest scent of any hardy annual you can sow. Sweet, vanilla and spice, and a couple of square metres will perfume a whole terrace or come in through an open kitchen window. Nothing else gives that much fragrance for that little effort.

Plant it accordingly: under a window, along a path you walk in the evening, beside a bench. The old cottage trick is to sow it mixed in with something better looking that flowers at the same time, so the bed has something to offer during the day.

It is about as easy as seed gets. Direct sow, barely covered, from March through July, and sow a short row every three or four weeks or you get one flush and then nothing. Keep the ground lean.