Scabious Black Knight

As close to black as a flower gets. Dome-shaped pincushions in a maroon-purple velvet dark enough that in dappled light, or indoors, they simply read as black, speckled with tiny white stamens like pins in a cushion. On wiry stems at 90cm.

There is a honey scent on a warm day, and butterflies and bees come to it in numbers, which is not what people expect from a flower grown for its moodiness.

What dark flowers do in an arrangement is ground everything else. A summer bouquet of pinks, whites and warm oranges competes with itself; put three stems of this through it and the other colours settle down and read clearly. It is a true cut-and-come-again, so the more you take the more it makes, and deadheading is what keeps it going to the November frosts.

Two practical points. Get support in early, at 20 or 30cm, because 90cm stems go over in a summer storm and staking afterwards is too late. And it wants full sun and neutral to alkaline ground with sharp drainage; on clay add grit, or the roots rot in winter wet.