Nigella Mulberry Rose (Love-in-a-mist)

Most flowers fade in the sun. This one goes the other way. The paper-thin ruffled blooms open a pale pastel pink and deepen as they age into a rich mulberry rose, so a patch carries every stage at once and looks quite different from one week to the next.

That shifting quality is the point of it, and it is worth knowing you will never get a uniform block of one pink. If you need a matched set of stems for an event, cut over several days and sort as you go.

The seed pods carry the theme on: balloon-shaped and striped in burgundy and green, standing through autumn and drying well for a winter arrangement. As with every nigella you choose between flowers and pods, because deadheading gives you one and leaving them alone gives you the other.

Direct sow only; the taproot hates being moved. September gives earlier, stronger plants than spring. Keep the ground lean, because rich soil gives you more mist and fewer jewels. It self-seeds reliably and the pink largely holds in the offspring.