{"title":"Sow in March","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"stock-night-scented-lavender-pink-seeds","title":"Stocks Night Scented Lavender","description":"\u003cp\u003eBe 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlant 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961869635771,"sku":"STK-NSS","price":2.1,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/2048800f68ef97f76c04316_upscale.jpg?v=1758898401"},{"product_id":"achillea-cerise-queen-seeds","title":"Achillea Cerise Queen","description":"\u003cp\u003eWide flat plates of deep cherry-pink over feathery aromatic foliage, from June through to September, at 60 to 70cm. The flat heads are the point: dozens of tiny florets making one landing pad, which is why bees, hoverflies and butterflies work them so hard.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe colour does not stay put. It opens saturated cerise and fades through the season to smoky rose and dusty antique pink, so a mature clump carries three or four shades at once. Some growers love that. If you want one flat block of pink that holds all summer, this is the wrong plant. For cutting and drying it is a gift, because you can harvest across the range and the dried colour is better than the fresh.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow it hard. Rich, damp ground gives you tall soft stems that flop by midsummer and fewer flowers. Lean, well-drained soil in full sun gives you a plant that shrugs off a dry August. It spreads by rhizome into generous clumps and wants dividing every three years, otherwise the centre goes bare and the flowering drops off.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961869832379,"sku":"ACH-CER","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Achillea_Cerise_Queen_1.jpg?v=1775860060"},{"product_id":"achillea-ballerina-seeds","title":"Achillea Ballerina","description":"\u003cp\u003eSmall double white buttons, ruffled and about the size of a shirt button, carried in clouds above neat dark green foliage from June into early autumn. It gives you the froth that gypsophila gives, from a hardy perennial that comes back every year.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe useful thing about 'Ballerina' is that it is bred from our native sneezewort rather than the common yarrow, so it is a plant of damp meadows at heart. It will grow in the heavier, moisture-retentive ground that makes most yarrows sulk. At 40 to 60cm it stands up on its own and keeps standing after a July downpour, which is more than can be said for a lot of white fillers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo honest warnings. It spreads by underground rhizome and will keep going if you let it, so lift and divide every third spring or give it room where a bit of travel does not matter. And a single plant looks like nothing at all. Five or seven together give you the cloud; one gives you a few white specks. It cuts well and dries better.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961869865147,"sku":"ACH-BAL","price":2.25,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Achillea_Ballerina_1.jpg?v=1789376753"},{"product_id":"ammi-majus-seeds","title":"Ammi majus","description":"\u003cp\u003eFlat white lace-cap heads on tall slender stems above ferny foliage, as light and diffuse as sea foam. It has become the standard filler in British cutting gardens over the past decade for the simple reason that nothing else gives you that airiness on a stem you can actually cut.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAutumn sowing is what separates a good ammi from a mediocre one. Sown in September or October it overwinters as a small plant, goes away in spring with a root system already made, and comes in taller, stronger and two to four weeks earlier with noticeably bigger heads. Spring-sown plants are perfectly usable, just smaller. It makes a long taproot and resents being moved, so it does better sown where it is to grow than raised in modules and planted out. It self-seeds freely in a sheltered garden, which is either a bonus or a nuisance depending on how tidy you keep things.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAmmi is in the same family as giant hogweed and the sap is phototoxic. It is far milder than its notorious relative, but wear gloves and long sleeves when cutting in bright sunshine, particularly if your skin is sensitive.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961869963451,"sku":"AMM-MAJ","price":2.2,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Ammi_majus_1.jpg?v=1775753360"},{"product_id":"snapdragon-crown-mixed-seeds","title":"Antirrhinum Crown Mixed","description":"\u003cp\u003eA bedding snapdragon rather than a cutting one, and honest about it. Bushy plants at 35 to 45cm that branch freely from the base, in a full rainbow of scarlet, hot pink, yellow, deep purple and white, flowering from June to the first hard frosts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe virtue here is that it asks nothing of you. The taller cutting varieties want pinching, staking and careful handling. Crown Mixed goes in the ground and gets on with it, and the spikes are dense and weather-resistant enough to take a wet summer without collapsing. If you want long stems for the vase this is the wrong snapdragon; the stems are short and bushy and only really suit a jam jar posy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is the classic dragon's mouth flower, the one children squeeze open and shut, which is reason enough on its own to put a row of it where they will find it. Bumblebees are the only insects heavy enough to force the petals apart and reach the nectar, so a bed of these is a bumblebee bed specifically. In a mild garden it behaves as a short-lived perennial and will sometimes overwinter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961869996219,"sku":"ANT-CRN","price":2.15,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Antirrhinum_Crown_Mixed_1.jpg?v=1775753814"},{"product_id":"china-aster-duchess-mixed-seeds","title":"Aster Duchess Mixed","description":"\u003cp\u003eDense incurved peony-form heads in violet, hot pink, lavender, crimson and white, on sturdy 60cm stems, arriving in August just as the cutting patch starts to look thin. Vase life runs to ten days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWorth being clear on what these are. China asters are Callistephus chinensis, a half-hardy annual, and nothing to do with the perennial Michaelmas daisies that share the name. You grow them fresh from seed every year. That is the cost. The return is four or five weeks of generous cutting through September and October, when very little else is producing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo practical warnings. The heads are heavy and a windy site will lay them flat, so net or stake them if you are exposed. And China asters are prone to aster wilt, a soil-borne fungus that kills plants at the point they start to flower, which is heartbreaking timing. It builds up in ground that grows them repeatedly, so move them round the plot on a three or four year rotation rather than putting them back in the same bed.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961870061755,"sku":"AST-DCH","price":2.2,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Aster_Duchess_Mixed_1.jpg?v=1775757110"},{"product_id":"china-aster-ostrich-plume-seeds","title":"Aster Ostrich Plume","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn heirloom China aster grown for well over a century, with long narrow petals that curl and twist outward in every direction to make a shaggy, feathered head. It looks like an expensive florist chrysanthemum and is a great deal easier to grow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mix runs through shell pink, lavender, deep violet and crimson to white, on stems of 50 to 60cm. It is softer and less formal than the modern peony-flowered strains. Where those give you a tight rounded ball, this gives you something loose and slightly dishevelled, which suits a rustic arrangement far better than a wedding one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt flowers from August to October, half-hardy and sown fresh each spring, and holds up to a fortnight in a cool room. The usual China aster cautions apply. Being an older open strain rather than a modern F1, the plants are less uniform, so expect some variation in height and flowering date across a row. And aster wilt is the thing that will lose you a crop, so rotate the bed and do not grow them in the same ground two years running.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961870094523,"sku":"AST-OST","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/aster-ostrich-plume-1.jpg?v=1790121568"},{"product_id":"basil-classic-italian-seeds","title":"Basil Classic Italian","description":"\u003cp\u003eIf you grow one herb, make it this one. Genovese is the large-leaved sweet basil bred over generations around Genoa specifically for big tender leaves and a balanced sweetness with none of the bitterness lesser basils carry. It is the only basil for a proper pesto.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe leaves are broad, glossy and richly green, with that warm clove-and-anise aroma that fills a kitchen the moment you tear one. A single pot on a windowsill scents a room.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTreat it as the Mediterranean plant it is — warm, fed, and picked constantly. Water in the morning at the base and keep the leaves dry, since water sitting on the foliage overnight is what causes mildew. Pinch out flower spikes as they form; the flavour is at its best before the plant flowers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961870258363,"sku":"BSL-CLC","price":1.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Basil_Classic_Italian_1.jpg?v=1775776075"},{"product_id":"basil-holy-thai-tulsi-seeds","title":"Basil Holy Thai","description":"\u003cp\u003eNot the Thai basil sold in supermarkets — this is the genuine article. Holy Basil, Tulsi across South Asia and Kaprao in Thailand, is a different species with hairy stems, serrated leaves and an intensely peppery, clove-forward flavour quite unlike the sweet anise of Italian basil.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe heat comes from eugenol, the compound that gives cloves their warmth, and it intensifies rather than fades when cooked. That is exactly why it goes into a sizzling wok at the last moment for Pad Kra Pao rather than being stirred raw into a salad.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt carries real cultural weight too. In Hindu tradition Tulsi is the queen of herbs, grown at the heart of the home and tended as an act of devotion, and brewed as tea across South Asia for thousands of years. Being genuinely tropical, it wants more warmth and humidity than Italian basil — a greenhouse, a conservatory, or the sunniest windowsill you have.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961870291131,"sku":"BSL-THA","price":2.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Basil_Holy_Thai_1.png?v=1775776327"},{"product_id":"basil-thai-siam-queen-seeds","title":"Basil Thai Siam Queen","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe aristocrat of the Thai basils, and an All-America Selections winner. Siam Queen takes what is good about traditional Thai basil and makes it bigger — leaves close to twice the size of older strains, more vigour, more uniformity, and better resistance to bolting in heat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flavour is correspondingly bolder: a powerful sweet-spicy fragrance of anise and clove with a citrus edge, and it holds through cooking rather than fading in the pan.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is also unusually handsome for a culinary herb. Deep green leaves on purple-flushed stems, topped through late summer with showy spikes of purple-lavender flowers that stand well above the foliage and draw bees and butterflies. Few herbs earn a place on looks alone; this one comes close.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961870356667,"sku":"BSL-SIA","price":1.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/2048800f5f6610ad42323a9_upscale.jpg?v=1758898455"},{"product_id":"basil-thai-large-leaf-seeds","title":"Basil Thai Large Leaf","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe authentic Thai sweet basil, known as Horapa, in a large-leaf selection that crops more generously than the usual narrow-leaved type. Glossy pointed leaves, purple stems and pink flower spikes, with a flavour firmly anise and liquorice where the Italian basils are sweet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe important difference for a cook is heat stability. Italian basil should only meet a pan once the heat is off; Horapa genuinely cooks, holding its aroma through a simmering curry or a hot wok. That single quality is why it cannot be replaced with a Mediterranean basil.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUse it the way Thai cooks do, in two additions — a handful early to build the sauce, another at the end for the bright top note. And let one or two flower spikes develop per plant: the flowers carry a more concentrated aniseed flavour than the leaves and make the best garnish the plant produces.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961870389435,"sku":"BSL-TLL","price":2.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/basil-thai-large-leaf-1.jpg?v=1790121619"},{"product_id":"borage-seeds","title":"Borage","description":"\u003cp\u003eIf you grow one plant for the bees, grow borage. It produces vivid true-blue star flowers from June to October and refills them with nectar at such a rate that it is reckoned among the most valuable bee plants you can sow. On a warm day a borage plant fairly hums.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is as useful in the kitchen as in the border. Flowers and young leaves both taste distinctly of cucumber, and the blue stars are one of the loveliest edible garnishes there is — floated in a jug of Pimm's, frozen into ice cubes, scattered over a soft cheese. The flowers open pink and turn blue, so a single plant carries both shades at once.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt actively prefers poor soil and full sun, and rich ground simply gives you lush leaf and fewer flowers. Sow it where it is to grow, since the taproot resents moving, and let a few heads set seed — one sowing usually means borage for years.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961870586043,"sku":"BOR-AGE","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/borage-1.jpg?v=1790122878"},{"product_id":"calendula-art-shades-mixed-seeds","title":"Calendula Art Shades Mixed","description":"\u003cp\u003eMost pot marigolds are a flat carnival orange. Art Shades is deliberately softer: apricot, cream, pale peach and warm buff, on bushy plants at 60cm flowering from June to the first hard frosts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mix gives you a range of flower forms as well as colours, from fully double through semi-double to plain single. That is worth knowing before you sow, because the singles are the ones the bees can actually use. A fully double calendula has petals where the nectar should be. A row of Art Shades will feed pollinators, but not as well as a row of singles would.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeing a mix, it also throws the occasional plain bright orange, and the more it self-seeds around your garden the more of those you will get. The soft shades are the selected end of a species that wants to be orange, and left alone it drifts back. Save seed only from the palest plants if you want to hold the palette. The petals are edible and it is one of the easiest things a beginner can grow.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961871143099,"sku":"CAL-ASM","price":2.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Calendula_Art_Shades.jpg?v=1789377573"},{"product_id":"calendula-oopsy-daisy-seeds","title":"Calendula Oopsy Daisy","description":"\u003cp\u003eA dwarf calendula, neat at 25 to 30cm, with creamy-white flowers splashed with tangerine as though someone had flicked a paintbrush at them. No two flowers are marked the same way. The splash lands on the petal tips of one, the bases of another, the middle of a third.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat unpredictability is the charm and also the thing to expect. Some flowers come out barely marked at all, some come close to solid orange, and there is no controlling which. If you want a uniform edging you will not get it here.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe compact habit is genuine rather than the work of a growth regulator, so plants stay neat in a window box or a patio pot instead of flopping over the side by August. That does mean short stems, so it is not a cutting flower and a jam jar posy is about the limit. The petals are edible and the two-tone marking looks far better scattered over a salad or a cake than a plain orange one does. Like all calendula it draws in hoverflies, whose larvae eat aphids, which is reason enough to stand a pot of it beside the beans.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961871175867,"sku":"CAL-OOP","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/calendula-oopsy-daisy-1.jpg?v=1790122775"},{"product_id":"calendula-wintersun-seeds","title":"Calendula Wintersun","description":"\u003cp\u003eA calendula bred to flower in winter. Sown in late summer or early autumn, the plants bulk up while there is still warmth in the ground and then produce golden flowers through November, December, January and February, which is an unlikely thing to have in a British garden.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe sowing window is everything. \u003cstrong\u003eSow it in spring and you have an ordinary summer pot marigold. Miss the late-summer sowing and the whole point of the variety is lost.\u003c\/strong\u003e Get it in by early September and you have flowers when nothing else is doing anything at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBe realistic about what winter flowering means. The blooms are smaller than a summer calendula, around 5cm, and they come in flushes rather than continuously. A hard frost will knock them flat and they pick up again in the next mild spell. What matters is that there is something gold in the garden in January, and that bumblebee queens emerging on a mild winter day have somewhere to feed, which is genuinely scarce at that time of year. It cuts well too, and lasts a surprisingly long time in a cold room.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961871339707,"sku":"CAL-WIN","price":2.4,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Calendula_Wintersun.jpg?v=1789377916"},{"product_id":"chamomile-seeds","title":"Chamomile German","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe earth-apple herb, and if you grow one thing for the tea cupboard this is probably it. Small white daisies with high golden centres on slim ferny stems, and the sweet apple fragrance that gave chamomile its Greek name. One small patch produces more dried flowers in a summer than most households drink in a year.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is the chamomile of chamomile tea worldwide — the most drunk herbal infusion on earth. There is a particular pleasure in a cup made from flowers you picked and dried yourself that no teabag matches.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is also one of the most useful companion plants in a kitchen garden, sometimes called the plants' physician for the way it seems to improve the health of brassicas, onions and cucumbers growing nearby. Do not feed it — like most herbs it gives its best scent on lean ground.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961871700155,"sku":"CHA-MIL","price":2.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Chamomile_German.png?v=1789378455"},{"product_id":"chive-seeds","title":"Chives","description":"\u003cp\u003eChives earn their place three times over. They give the mild onion leaves a cook reaches for several times a week. They give lavender pompom flowers that are fully edible and adored by bees. And their sulphur compounds quietly help deter carrot root fly and aphids from whatever grows nearby.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey are also a true perennial, which sets them apart from most kitchen garden herbs. Sow a clump in your first year and you will still be cutting from it in ten or twenty, the clump getting larger and more productive as it goes. Lift and divide every three or four years and you have spare plants to give away.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the moment. In early summer the whole clump throws up lavender-pink globes on slim stems, each made of dozens of tiny stars. They last well in a vase, and the petals scattered over a goat's cheese tart are one of the loveliest things you can put on a table.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872191675,"sku":"CHI-VES","price":1.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Chives.png?v=1789378709"},{"product_id":"clarkia-crown-double-mix-seeds","title":"Clarkia Crown Double Mix","description":"\u003cp\u003eTall slender spikes packed with intricate ruffled double flowers that look more like small orchids than a hardy annual has any right to, in soft rose, salmon, mauve and white. The flowers open progressively up the spike, so one stem gives weeks of display.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlmost nobody grows it, which is a shame and also a clue. Clarkia wants cool. It comes from the Pacific North-West, where it flowers as spring turns to summer, and the American name Farewell to Spring is a fair description of its season. In a hot dry British summer it goes over quickly, and on rich, well-fed ground it makes soft leafy growth and flops. Poor thin soil and a cool spring give the best plants, which is the opposite of most people's instincts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSown early and given lean ground it is one of the best cut flowers in the hardy annual range, at 60 to 75cm with good vase life and a genuinely old-fashioned character that suits a cottage bouquet. It self-seeds gently. Plant it in fives or sevens; the spikes are slender and a single one disappears.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872224443,"sku":"CLA-CRW","price":2.2,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Clarkia_Crown_Double_Mix.jpg?v=1789381064"},{"product_id":"clary-sage-oxford-blue-seeds","title":"Clary Sage Oxford Blue","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe single-colour selection from the annual clary family, and the soloist to the mixed varieties' carnival. Spikes of 60 to 75cm topped with deep, almost violet indigo bracts that look as though they have been varnished.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe colour lasts because it is not petal pigment at all — it is held in the bracts, which is why it survives summer rain, hot sun and eventually the vase far better than a true flower would. Weeks of display from one flush.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere is nothing as useful as a saturated indigo for making warm-toned arrangements sing, and it dries exceptionally well provided you keep it out of direct sunlight, since UV degrades blue dried-flower pigments faster than any other colour. Pinch the growing tip at ten centimetres for more cutting stems.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872289979,"sku":"CLR-SAG","price":2.2,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/clary-sage-oxford-blue-1.jpg?v=1790121423"},{"product_id":"coriander-seeds","title":"Coriander","description":"\u003cp\u003eTwo harvests, two names, one packet. Sown for its leaves it gives you cilantro — bright, citrus-and-pepper leaves that lift a curry or a salsa. Left to run on, the same plant flowers, feeds the bees, and ripens into the round warm seeds of the spice rack.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flavours are quite different at each end. Green and zesty in the leaf, warm and orange-spiced in the seed, and between them they sit at the heart of kitchens from Mexico to India to Thailand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is the classic culinary coriander rather than a slow-bolting strain, which means it does what coriander naturally does: in summer heat it runs to flower. That is half the point. Sow a short row every two or three weeks for unbroken leaf, and let the late sowings bolt for seed. It resents transplanting, so sow it where it is to grow.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872421051,"sku":"COR-IAN","price":1.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/2048800c8594e53eb4eef36_upscale.jpg?v=1758898528"},{"product_id":"corncockle-seeds","title":"Corncockle","description":"\u003cp\u003eLarge open magenta-pink trumpets with a pale centre marked by fine black lines, held airily on wiry stems at 75 to 90cm. The silky petals catch the light and the whole plant sways in the smallest breeze, which is most of its charm.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt used to grow in every cornfield in Britain. Better seed cleaning and post-war herbicides had all but removed it from farmland by the 1950s, so what grows in cottage gardens and wildflower plots now is genuinely a survival rather than a decoration. The black lines on the petals are honey guides, pointing long-tongued bumblebees at the nectar at the bottom of the tube.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt weaves rather than competes, threading up through whatever is planted beside it, so it is better scattered through a border than grown in a block. It self-seeds reliably once you have it, and it has a sensitive taproot that does best sown where it is to grow, on poor, well-drained ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEvery part of this plant is poisonous if eaten, the seed most of all. Wear gloves when handling it, and think carefully before planting it where children forage or pets chew.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872453819,"sku":"CRN-CKL","price":2.2,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/5EE24E24-A11F-411F-BCF2-B43E01193DAB.jpg?v=1772659404"},{"product_id":"cornflower-black-ball-seeds","title":"Cornflower Black Ball","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt is not black. It is a deep velvet maroon-chocolate, the colour of crushed blackberries, and only at a distance does it pass for black. Close up there is plum and burgundy in it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat distance effect is worth thinking about before you plant a row. Very dark flowers absorb light and read as gaps rather than colour from more than a few paces, so a block of 'Black Ball' on its own tends to disappear into a border. It is at its best with something pale hard against it: white ammi, cream cosmos, lime bupleurum. The same rule applies in a vase, where the contrast is what makes the arrangement.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe blooms are dense double Ball types, far more substantial than a wild cornflower, on silvery stems that cut well. It is the one to grow if the ordinary cobalt blue feels too obvious. Sow it in September rather than spring if the ground is workable. Autumn-sown cornflowers build a root system over winter and come up markedly bigger and more branched the following summer than anything sown in March.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872519355,"sku":"CRN-BLK","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/FullSizeRender_c3dba413-4e0d-4522-a4d5-6bd79505c25d.jpg?v=1758898542"},{"product_id":"cornflower-blue-ball-seeds","title":"Cornflower Blue Ball","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe cornflower that named the colour. Dense, fully double, ruffled heads in an electric azure that looks lit from inside, on silver-green stems. If you grow only one cornflower it should be this one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is a genuine cut-and-come-again plant. The more you take, the more it makes, and a short row will keep a jug filled from early summer to the frosts. Stop cutting for a fortnight and it sets seed and shuts down, which is the commonest way people lose a cornflower crop in July.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo honest notes. The doubling that makes the flower substantial also crowds the centre, so it is less use to bees than the single wild form; if pollinators are the priority, grow some wild cornflower alongside it. And at this height the stems lean after heavy rain unless there is something to hold them, so run a net or some twiggy sticks through the row early rather than after it has gone over. Self-sown seedlings drift back towards smaller, simpler flowers within a couple of generations.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872552123,"sku":"CRN-BLU","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/2048800e9882226499b4a5a_upscale.jpg?v=1758898549"},{"product_id":"cornflower-mauve-boy-seeds","title":"Cornflower Mauve Boy","description":"\u003cp\u003eA soft dusty lavender-lilac, never harsh, with the same fully double ruffled Ball form as the blue. It is the cornflower for a scheme where electric azure would be too loud.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBe aware of what pastel does at a distance. The colour is lovely at arm's length and in a vase, and it more or less evaporates across a garden; from the far end of a border a drift of 'Mauve Boy' reads as a pale haze rather than as flowers. Plant it where it will be walked past, or grow it mainly for cutting, where soft lilac against white and cream is exactly the effect people pay florists for.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt self-seeds readily and makes informal colonies, though the volunteers drift towards paler mauve and eventually back towards blue. It is drought-tolerant once established and asks very little. Like all the tall cornflowers it wants supporting before it needs it rather than after, and it wants cutting hard and often to keep flowering past midsummer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872584891,"sku":"CRN-MAU","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/cornflower-mauve-boy-1.jpg?v=1790121800"},{"product_id":"cornflower-polka-dot-mixed-seeds","title":"Cornflower Polka Dot Mixed","description":"\u003cp\u003eA dwarf cornflower, bushy at 30 to 50cm, bred in 1960 for gardeners who wanted the whole colour range without the height. The mix runs blue, deep maroon, raspberry, rose, pink, lavender and white, which is the widest palette in the family.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe compact habit is the point. It needs no staking, it does not lean after rain the way the tall Ball types do, and it will grow in a window box or a patio pot where a 90cm cornflower would be absurd. At the front of a border it makes low multicoloured mounds that hold their shape all season.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe trade-off is on the stem. The flowers are smaller than the tall varieties and the stems are short, so this is a plant for looking at rather than for the cutting patch; a small jug of informal posies is about as far as it goes. Self-sown seedlings keep the dwarf habit reasonably well, which is unusual and useful. It is about as easy as a hardy annual gets, which makes it a good one for a child's patch.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872650427,"sku":"CRN-MIX","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/2048800b41e2f062b2de826_upscale.jpg?v=1774112583"},{"product_id":"cornflower-red-boy-seeds","title":"Cornflower Red Boy","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe name oversells it, and the flower is better for it. This is not a fire-engine red but a deep carmine-ruby, a berry tone that reads ruby in strong sun and shifts towards crushed velvet in softer light.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat warmth is what it brings to a border that has gone all blues and greens. It sits with the apricot and blush end of the cutting patch far better than a true scarlet would, and it is one of the few cornflowers that works in a warm-toned bouquet rather than a cool one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEverything else is standard for a tall double Ball cornflower: silver-green stems, feathery foliage, generous production for as long as you keep cutting. The petals are edible and hold their ruby colour unusually well when dried, so they are worth saving for cake work. Sow it in autumn if the ground is workable. September-sown plants come through the winter and make substantially bigger, more branched specimens the following year than anything started in spring.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872683195,"sku":"CRN-RED","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/BE7C2BB8-EC37-4C63-9CA9-E7A85C6AB8A0.jpg?v=1772659645"},{"product_id":"cosmos-fizzy-rose-seeds","title":"Cosmos Fizzy Rose","description":"\u003cp\u003eSemi-double blooms in soft pale mauve-pink, each petal outlined in a slightly deeper shade. It is a picotee edge rather than a stripe, subtle enough that people often do not register it until they are holding the flower.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat subtlety cuts both ways. Across a border the picotee does not read at all and you have a pleasant pale mauve cosmos. In the hand, or in a vase on a table, the detail is what lifts an ordinary bouquet into something that looks arranged. Grow it where it will be seen close to, or grow it for cutting.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSemi-double is the useful middle ground. There are enough extra petals to give the flower substance, and the centre stays open, so bees can still work it in a way they cannot work the fully double sorts. At 90 to 120cm it wants some support and a sunny open spot. It is half-hardy and flowers July to October. Keep it hungry; cosmos on fed, rich ground makes leaves instead of flowers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872715963,"sku":"COS-FIZ","price":2.2,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/cosmos-fizzy-rose-1.jpg?v=1790121917"},{"product_id":"cosmos-purity-seeds","title":"Cosmos Purity","description":"\u003cp\u003eBroad silky white petals around a small gold disc, 8 to 10cm across, on airy stems at 90 to 120cm. If you grow one white flower for cutting, this is a strong candidate.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhite is the most useful colour in a bouquet because it makes everything beside it read more strongly. A jug of mixed cottage flowers with 'Purity' through it looks brighter than the same jug without. It also glows at dusk in a way coloured flowers do not, which is why it turns up in every moon garden and every evening border.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe drawbacks are the ones that come with white. Rain spots the petals brown and they stay spotted, so cut ahead of a downpour if you have a use in mind. And it self-seeds enthusiastically. Volunteers will come up for years and gradually drift back towards pink, so pull anything that is not white if you want the planting to stay clean. It is half-hardy, flowering July to the frosts, and it wants lean ground. Feed it and you get a six-foot green shrub with a dozen flowers on it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872781499,"sku":"COS-PRT","price":2.4,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/20488001e676ffe3f651d03_upscale.jpg?v=1758898583"},{"product_id":"cosmos-seashell-seeds","title":"Cosmos Seashells Mixed","description":"\u003cp\u003eEvery petal rolled into a tube, so the flower reads as a ring of small trumpets or shells radiating from the gold centre. It is a stable genetic quirk rather than a trick of breeding, and it won a Fleuroselect Novelty award for it. Visitors always stop and ask.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mix gives soft pink, white, deep carmine and bicolours, all quilled, on tall plants at 100 to 120cm. In an arrangement the tubular petals bring a three-dimensional quality that a flat daisy cannot, which makes it more interesting in a modern vase than a traditional one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBe prepared for some inconsistency. Not every flower quills fully. A proportion open half-rolled or nearly flat, particularly early in the season and on plants that have had a check, and it settles down as they mature. Unlike the fully double cosmos the centre is left open here, so bees can still use it. Lean soil, full sun, no feeding, and keep cutting to keep it flowering to the frosts.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872814267,"sku":"COS-SEA","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/2048800013061aa7ac4177c_upscale.jpg?v=1758898588"},{"product_id":"cosmos-sensation-mixed-seeds","title":"Cosmos Sensation Mixed","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe benchmark. Large single flowers, 8 to 10cm, in the full range of pinks, whites and carmines on stems of 90 to 120cm, and no other plant in a cutting patch produces this many stems per square metre.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt holds an RHS Award of Garden Merit, and it is the one to give a beginner, because it is close to unkillable given sun and poor soil. Sow in spring, plant out after the frosts, keep cutting, and it will supply a household with flowers from July until the frosts finish it in November.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo notes on the mix. You get what you get, since there is no sorting by colour before the buds open, and the deep carmine tends to be the most vigorous, so a self-seeded colony drifts towards magenta within a few years. Pull the ones you do not want while they are small. And here is the standard cosmos warning again, because it is the thing that goes wrong most often: \u003cstrong\u003edo not feed it, and do not plant it in good soil.\u003c\/strong\u003e Rich ground gives you a huge leafy plant and almost no flowers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961872847035,"sku":"COS-SEN","price":2.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/2048800fe1bf8a8dcd0eb5c_upscale.jpg?v=1758898589"},{"product_id":"dahlia-cactus-mixed-seeds","title":"Dahlia Cactus Mixed","description":"\u003cp\u003eEvery petal rolled into a tight quill, so the flower opens as a spiky starburst rather than a disc. The mix runs hot pink, yellow, orange and ruby red on substantial plants to 120cm, with stems long enough to cut.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe quilling has a practical benefit nobody mentions on the packet. Water runs straight off a rolled petal instead of pooling in the middle of the flower, so cactus dahlias come through a wet British August far better than the heavy decorative and dinnerplate sorts, which sit full of rainwater and rot in the head. In a wet summer that is the difference between a crop and a mess.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is a half-hardy perennial grown from seed as an annual, flowering July to the first frosts, and the tubers can be lifted and stored over winter if you want bigger plants next year. At 120cm with heavy heads it needs staking, and it needs it in June rather than after the first gale. Slugs find the young plants before anything else does, so protect them when they first go out.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961873010875,"sku":"DAH-CAC","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Gemini_Generated_Image_fbxgldfbxgldfbxg.png?v=1778507358"},{"product_id":"dahlia-early-bird-mix-seeds","title":"Dahlia Early Bird Mix","description":"\u003cp\u003eA dwarf dahlia bred for speed. Ten to twelve weeks from sowing to the first flower, against twelve to fourteen for most, which in practice means colour in late June when other dahlias are still building.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt 50 to 60cm the plants are bushy and self-supporting, so there is no staking and no tying in. That makes them the practical choice for a patio pot, a window box or the front of a border, where a 120cm dahlia would be a nuisance. The mix gives semi-double and double flowers in red, violet, yellow, orange and bronze.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo things to weigh. The stems are short, so this is not a cutting variety; you can float a head in a bowl but you will not make a bouquet from it. And a dwarf bushy dahlia in a wet season holds moisture around its centre, so keep the spent flowers picked off or the middle of the plant goes mouldy. The open-centred flowers in the mix are useful to bees, which the tight ball and cactus types are not. Tubers can be lifted and stored, though most people treat these as an annual.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961873076411,"sku":"DAH-ELY","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Gemini_Generated_Image_a5nunka5nunka5nu.png?v=1773851663"},{"product_id":"dill-bouquet-seeds","title":"Dill Bouquet","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe dill the cutting garden grows. Where ordinary dill is raised for the kitchen alone, 'Bouquet' was selected for the flower bench — ninety centimetre stems topped with large flat umbels of vivid acid-green florets that make every colour around them look better.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet it against deep purple cosmos, rusty rudbeckia or a near-black dahlia and the lime lifts the whole arrangement. It lasts a week to ten days in water, which is more than most fillers manage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou still get everything dill normally gives you. Feathery aromatic leaves for the kitchen, edible florets to scatter over fish or new potatoes, and seed heads to dry for pickling. It is also slower to bolt than most dills, so the leaf harvest lasts longer before the plant turns its attention to flowering.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961873109179,"sku":"DIL-BOU","price":2.15,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Gemini_Generated_Image_8vyrcw8vyrcw8vyr.png?v=1771696360"},{"product_id":"echinops-ritro-metallic-blue-seeds","title":"Echinops ritro Metallic Blue","description":"\u003cp\u003ePerfect geometric spheres of tiny florets, opening silver-metallic and deepening through blue-grey to a saturated steel-blue. The stems are rigid and silvery-white, self-supporting at 90 to 120cm, and the foliage is jagged in proper thistle style.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is one of the great bee plants. A mature clump in flower on a warm August afternoon is audible from several feet away, and the bumblebee numbers on it are as high as anything you can grow. It also dries better than almost any perennial. Cut just before the tiny florets open, when the sphere is dense and the colour is fully up, and the blue will hold for years out of direct light.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt wants poor, dry, sun-baked ground, and it means it. On rich moist soil it makes soft growth, flops and loses colour; on a hungry gravel bed it is at its best. It takes a couple of years from seed to build a decent clump and it will not be hurried.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIt is a true thistle. The leaves and the dried heads carry sharp prickles, so wear gloves when you cut it or work around it.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961873174715,"sku":"ECH-MET","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Gemini_Generated_Image_7xzo4r7xzo4r7xzo.png?v=1778527340"},{"product_id":"echinops-ritro-veitchs-blue-seeds","title":"Echinops ritro Veitch's Blue","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe selected form of the globe thistle, and the one carrying an RHS Award of Garden Merit. Deeper globes in a genuine indigo rather than steel-blue, larger heads, and a more compact habit than the straight species.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhether the extra depth of colour matters depends on what you want it for. In a border, at a distance, the difference between this and 'Metallic Blue' is modest. In a vase, and particularly dried, it is obvious: the indigo reads as a solid colour where the paler form can look grey. If you are growing globe thistle mainly for cutting and drying, this is the one to take.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEverything else is as for the family. Rigid self-supporting stems at 90 to 120cm, thriving on poor dry sun-baked ground and sulking on anything rich or wet, hardy well below anything Britain produces, and mobbed by bumblebees for the whole of its flowering. It takes two or three seasons from seed to make a full clump.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLike all globe thistles, the leaves and heads are sharply prickled. Wear gloves.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961873207483,"sku":"ECH-VEB","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/E4EB39E1-F32A-4ED7-8019-B6DED907AC08.jpg?v=1758898624"},{"product_id":"gaura-the-bride-seeds","title":"Gaura 'The Bride'","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe white form, and if anything the better of the two. Pure white four-petalled flowers scattered loosely along fine arching stems, so that even in still air the plant seems to be moving.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhite is what makes it useful rather than merely pretty. In an evening border the flowers hold light long after coloured ones have gone flat, and set in front of a heavy planting the white veil makes everything behind it read more strongly. It flowers June through October, a very long season for a perennial, and it cuts for a soft romantic arrangement in a way little else does.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is a prairie plant from Texas and Louisiana and it wants sun and sharp drainage. Cold wet clay in winter rots the crown and it does not come back, so a container is the answer on heavy ground. It also comes up very late in spring, often not until May, which catches people out every year. And be aware that seed-raised gaura is variable: a proportion of plants come with a pink flush rather than pure white, so grow a few extra and keep the cleanest.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961873567931,"sku":"GAU-LIN","price":2.7,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/5A4B22D4-E4FF-4E30-8249-06494C28B9FB.jpg?v=1772915641"},{"product_id":"gypsophila-elegans-covent-garden-seeds","title":"Gypsophila Covent Garden","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe annual gypsophila, and a different plant altogether from the creeping perennial most gardeners know. Tall at 45 to 60cm, with clouds of small open white flowers on fine branching stems, bred as a cutting strain with noticeably larger and whiter flowers than the perennial kinds.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is the airiness in a florist's bouquet. Whatever else is in the vase, a few stems of this lift it and stop the arrangement reading as solid. It is also very fast, at six to eight weeks from sowing to flower, quicker than almost anything else you can sow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe catch is that speed cuts both ways. Each sowing comes into flower fast, gives two or three weeks of cutting and then goes over, so a single spring sowing leaves you with nothing by July. Sow a short row every three weeks from March through June and you will have it all summer. It resents transplanting, so sow it where it is to grow. It wants sun and lean, free-draining, preferably alkaline ground; the name gypsophila means chalk-loving, and it means it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961873633467,"sku":"GYP-COV","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/A0D5CB21-331A-4F05-B878-B1FBB5C6D9DF.jpg?v=1772915839"},{"product_id":"hollyhock-summer-carnival-seeds","title":"Hollyhock Summer Carnival","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe hollyhock that does not make you wait a year. Sown early enough, in January or February under cover, it runs the whole cycle in a single summer and gives you 1.5m spikes of fully double ruffled flowers the same season. It holds an RHS Award of Garden Merit.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are the peony-like Chater's type, packed and powder-puffy, in pink, scarlet, yellow and white. They are showier than the singles and of considerably less use to bees, which cannot get past the petals.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe early sowing is not optional. Sow it in April and you have an ordinary biennial that flowers next year, which defeats the point of buying it.\u003c\/strong\u003e It also makes a deep taproot and hates being moved, so raise it in deep pots and plant out without disturbing the rootball.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRust will find it like any hollyhock. Water at the base, keep air moving round the plants, and cut them down after flowering rather than leaving infected material standing. The bristly stems and leaves irritate sensitive skin, so wear gloves.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961873862843,"sku":"HLY-SUM","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/hollyhock-summer-carnival-flower-seeds-petal-leaf-861.jpg?v=1758898690"},{"product_id":"larkspur-giant-imperial-mixed","title":"Larkspur Giant Imperial Mix","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe larkspur that gives you more than one stem per plant. Where the single-spike varieties produce one column and stop, 'Giant Imperial' branches from the base into three to six flowering stems, which multiplies the harvest from any given patch of ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe flowers are fully double and ruffled in the classic cottage palette, violet, deep blue, rose, carmine and white, on rigid stems of a metre or more that need very little staking. It cuts well, dries beautifully, and the dried petals are the traditional biodegradable wedding confetti.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwo things matter when sowing. The seed needs darkness, so cover it with about 5mm of soil rather than surface-sowing. And it goes dormant if it gets too warm; a week in the freezer before sowing mimics a sharp frost and wakes it up. \u003cstrong\u003eAll parts are toxic if eaten\u003c\/strong\u003e, so wash your hands after handling and keep it away from children and pets.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961874256059,"sku":"LRK-GIM","price":2.1,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/8409EB28-6737-40EF-9E0D-462ACE770C6B.jpg?v=1773344107"},{"product_id":"lemon-balm-seeds","title":"Lemon Balm","description":"\u003cp\u003eBrush past this and you get a cloud of pure sherbet lemon. Lemon balm looks unassuming — bright green and crinkled, rather like a mint — but it is a powerhouse of flavour, and it makes a fresh herbal tea far better than anything from a dried teabag.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Latin name tells you the other reason to grow it. Melissa is Greek for honeybee, and beekeepers once rubbed the leaves inside new hives to persuade a swarm to settle. Planted near fruit or vegetables it pulls pollinators in reliably.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnlike the Mediterranean herbs it actually prefers moisture-retentive ground, which makes it useful on clay and in the cooler corners where thyme and lavender sulk. It is in the mint family but does not run underground; it does self-seed enthusiastically, so remove the flower spikes if you want to keep it in one place. Shear the whole plant back after flowering and it comes again fresh for autumn.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961874354363,"sku":"LEM-BAL","price":1.75,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/lemon-balm-1.png?v=1790121293"},{"product_id":"marjoram-sweet-seeds","title":"Marjoram Sweet","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhere Greek oregano is spicy and peppery, sweet marjoram is floral and perfumed, with hints of pine and citrus. It is the defining flavour of a traditional English roast — good sausages, sage and onion stuffing, anything that wants warmth rather than heat.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOften called knotted marjoram for the tight knot-like buds that form in late summer, it makes a neat bushy mound of soft grey-green velvet leaves. It dries better than almost any other herb, holding its scent for months.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrow it hard. Poor soil and moderate water produce the concentrated oils that give the flavour; pamper it and you get fast soft growth that tastes of very little. Unlike its tough relative oregano it will not survive a British winter outdoors, so lift it in September if you want to keep it going.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961874485435,"sku":"MRJ-SWT","price":1.55,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/Gemini_Generated_Image_hq812chq812chq81.png?v=1776271216"},{"product_id":"mint-lemon-seeds","title":"Mint Lemon","description":"\u003cp\u003eIf you cannot decide between mint and lemon, this settles it. Often sold as eau de cologne mint, this is a true mint with the vigour and dark glossy leaves of a peppermint, but crush one and you get lemon and lavender rather than menthol.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is quite different from lemon balm, which is grassy and sweet. This is sharper and more perfumed, and it makes a remarkable fresh tea, muddles beautifully into a summer drink, and lifts a fruit salad.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrow it in a pot.\u003c\/strong\u003e Like every true mint it travels by underground runners and will colonise a border given the chance. A container by the kitchen door keeps it where you want it and close to hand.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961874550971,"sku":"MNT-LEM","price":2.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/mint-lemon-herb-seeds-leaf-groundcover-flowering-393.jpg?v=1758898707"},{"product_id":"mint-peppermint-seeds","title":"Mint Peppermint","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe mint to grow if you want tea. Where spearmint is the one for new potatoes, peppermint carries a high menthol content and that distinct icy candy-cane character that clears the head.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is a handsome plant in its own right — dark green leaves flushed purple on reddish stems, topped with lilac flower spikes in late summer that hoverflies and small solitary bees work hard.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eKeep it in a container.\u003c\/strong\u003e Mint runners are unstoppable and will smother whatever is next to them within a season. Shear the whole plant back hard after the first flush and it will give you tender new growth for the rest of the summer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961874583739,"sku":"MNT-PEP","price":1.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/mint-peppermint-herb-seeds-ingredient-fines-herbes-847.jpg?v=1758898708"},{"product_id":"nasturtium-tom-thumb-seeds","title":"Nasturtium Tom Thumb","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe dwarf bushy nasturtium: a tidy mound of 25 to 30cm that stays where you put it, rather than the trailing sorts that set off across a bed. Classic trumpet flowers in scarlet, orange and yellow held above rounded shield-shaped leaves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEvery part of it is edible and peppery, like a hot watercress. Leaves and flowers go into a salad, and the green seed pods pickle into something close to capers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe one rule that matters: do not feed it.\u003c\/strong\u003e On rich manured ground you get a magnificent leafy plant and almost no flowers, which is the commonest nasturtium failure of all. Poor lean soil gives you flowers. In the kitchen garden it works as a trap crop as much as a companion; blackfly go for the nasturtiums in preference to the beans, which is useful, and does mean accepting that your nasturtiums will be covered in blackfly by July. That is the deal. It self-seeds reliably, the seeds are big enough for a child to handle, and it germinates in a week, which makes it about the best first plant there is.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961874616507,"sku":"NST-TOM","price":2.3,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/2048800279bd217aa6e698f_upscale.jpg?v=1774546635"},{"product_id":"nigella-mixed-seeds","title":"Nigella 'Miss Jekyll’ Mixed (Love-in-a-mist)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe full Miss Jekyll palette in one packet: sky blue, deep violet-blue, white and soft rose, each flower nestled in the same ruff of thread-fine foliage. At 45 to 60cm a drift reads as an impressionist haze rather than as individual plants.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou get two performances from it. The flowers come first, then each one swells into a striped balloon-shaped seed pod that stands through autumn and dries beautifully for a winter arrangement. \u003cstrong\u003eYou have to choose which you want, though. Deadhead for more flowers over a longer season, or leave them alone for the pods; you cannot have both from the same plant.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSow it where it is to grow, because the taproot resents moving and a transplanted nigella sulks. September sowing gives earlier, stronger plants than a spring one. Keep it lean, because rich ground gives you more mist and fewer jewels. The black seeds in the dried pods are kalonji, the nutty peppery black cumin used in Indian and Middle Eastern cooking. It self-seeds freely and the mix largely holds, though the proportions drift over the years.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961874682043,"sku":"NIG-LIM","price":2.1,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/2048800b2d4639fe08a838a_upscale.jpg?v=1773506081"},{"product_id":"oregano-greek-seeds","title":"Oregano Greek","description":"\u003cp\u003eNot all oregano is equal. The common wild sort looks pretty and tastes of very little; this Greek strain is the authentic culinary one, with the intense peppery punch that makes a pizza sauce or a Greek salad taste as it should.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt thrives on neglect, and genuinely tastes better for it. Poor soil and full sun concentrate the oils; water and feed it well and you get lush growth with no flavour. The hotter and drier the summer, the better the crop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt forms a low spreading mound topped with tiny white flowers that are an absolute magnet for bees — when in flower the mounds are often covered in them. Flavour peaks just before those flowers open, which is the moment to cut for drying.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961874813115,"sku":"ORE-GAN","price":2.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/oregano-greek-1.jpg?v=1790122228"},{"product_id":"oxeye-daisy-seeds","title":"Oxeye Daisy","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe native British daisy, the one in every unimproved meadow and on every roadside verge. Broad white petals round a yellow disc, 5 to 7cm across, on wiry stems at 40 to 60cm that bob and ripple in the wind.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is the plant to start a meadow with. It germinates readily, spreads by rhizome and by seed, and knits a patch of bare ground together while slower species establish. It is also excellent on a bank that needs stabilising.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThat vigour is the warning as much as the selling point. It will take over a small formal border and crowd out anything delicate near it, so give it room or keep it out of a fine composition. And do not feed it or sow it into improved soil.\u003c\/strong\u003e Rich ground gives you tall leggy floppy plants with fewer flowers, and it lets the daisy out-compete the smaller meadow species you were trying to grow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom seed, expect a rosette and no flowers in year one and the display from year two. Cut the whole planting down in late summer once the seed has dropped, and take the cuttings away, or you feed the soil and undo the point of it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961874845883,"sku":"OXY-DSY","price":2.1,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/F0C94B04-3D73-4B9D-92D2-87220C6B8CDA.jpg?v=1773349186"},{"product_id":"phacelia-tanacetifolia","title":"Phacelia","description":"\u003cp\u003eCoiled lavender-blue flower spikes that uncurl as they mature, above finely divided ferny foliage, on a fast hardy annual reaching 60 to 90cm in six or seven weeks from sowing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is one of the best bee plants that will grow in Britain, and two things account for it. The flowers make nectar continuously through the day rather than in pulses, so there is always something there, and the florets are shallow enough for short-tongued bees and hoverflies as well as bumblebees. Most good nectar plants serve one group; this serves nearly all of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is also a first-rate green manure. Sown thickly on an empty bed in August or September it makes a dense root system that breaks up clay, covers the soil against winter rain, and adds organic matter when dug in. Dig it in before it flowers if that is the job you want from it. \u003cstrong\u003eThe seed needs darkness, so rake it in to about a centimetre rather than scattering it on the surface.\u003c\/strong\u003e Each plant flowers for four to six weeks, so sow a short row monthly from March to September for continuous forage.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe stems and leaves carry fine stiff hairs that can itch or rash sensitive skin. Wear gloves, particularly when digging a lot of it in.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961875468475,"sku":"PHA-CEL","price":1.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/20488000905184a1644ffad_upscale.jpg?v=1758898746"},{"product_id":"poppy-californian-golden-west","title":"Poppy Californian Golden West","description":"\u003cp\u003eSilky cups of golden-yellow with a deep orange heart, sitting on mounds of finely cut silver-blue foliage at 25 to 30cm. The foliage alone is worth the space before a flower opens.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is the plant for the patch of dry poor ground where nothing settles. \u003cstrong\u003eThe poorer the soil the better it flowers; manure or feed it and you get lush leaves and almost nothing else.\u003c\/strong\u003e Full sun is not negotiable either, because the flowers stay shut in shade. \u003cstrong\u003eThey also close in the evening and on dull days\u003c\/strong\u003e, twisting into neat spirals, which is a protection mechanism and does mean a grey week gives you very little. On a bright morning it is a pool of light.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt self-seeds prolifically. The long pods split in late summer and scatter, so once you have it in a gravel path or on a dry bank it tends to stay for good. And it cannot be moved: the roots are deep and sensitive and a transplanted plant almost always dies, so sow it exactly where you want it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961875501243,"sku":"POP-CAL","price":2.1,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/204880031b6fb6fa797df59_upscale.jpg?v=1758898750"},{"product_id":"poppy-flanders-red-seeds","title":"Poppy Flanders Red","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe British field poppy, the same Papaver rhoeas that came up across the ground in Flanders and became the flower of remembrance. Silky scarlet cups five to seven centimetres across with a dark blotch at the base, on wiry stems at 45 to 75cm.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe petals are translucent, which is the thing photographs never quite catch. Plant it where the low sun can come through them from behind and the colour lights up from inside. Bees take the dark pollen, which is high in protein, and it self-seeds prolifically enough to hold a colony indefinitely once settled. In an establishing meadow it does the useful job of giving colour in year one while the perennials are still making roots.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSow it direct, because the taproot will not take moving, and surface-sow without covering. \u003cstrong\u003eAutumn sowing is markedly better: the seed gets a natural cold spell over winter and the plants come up stronger and flower weeks earlier.\u003c\/strong\u003e Do not feed it; poor ground gives the best plants. To cut it, take the bud as it cracks and sear the stem end with a match or in boiling water, or the sap runs and the flower wilts within the hour.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42961875566779,"sku":"POP-FLA","price":1.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/files\/4D44FB79-5716-42D6-8C11-9ABF6D5C2B38.jpg?v=1780812647"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0576\/6004\/7547\/collections\/8409EB28-6737-40EF-9E0D-462ACE770C6B.jpg?v=1787839694","url":"https:\/\/www.bishybarnabeescottagegarden.com\/collections\/seeds-to-sow-in-march.oembed?page=14","provider":"Bishy Barnabees Cottage Garden Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}