Linum Sky Blue has the most beautiful flowers in the shade of a perfect summer’s day. These plants are covered in a profusion of blooms that sway in summer breezes. Both useful and edible, it is the flowers that are the highlight for your garden…although I do sneak it in among my herbs!
🌸 Flowering: Summer
📏 Height: up to 90cm
🌿 Annual
Sow: in spring (March to June) once the threat of heavy frost has passed. Sow seeds thinly on the surface then lightly cover. Keep the soil moist until germination (usually 10-21 days), then water regularly while establishing. For seeds sown in late summer, use deeper modules that will allow the whole root ball to be moved with minimal disturbance, overwinter in coo,l frost-free conditions and plant out carefully the following spring.
Grow: thrives in light, sandy or loamy soil with good drainage. Plants need about a 10cm spacing so thin them out if necessary. These thinnings have roots that can easily be damaged and won’t transplant very well. Deadhead spent flowers to prolong the flowering period. May and June sowings can flower into August and sometimes early September.
Enjoy: bring the sky down to your garden, plant as a fabulous drift or pop it amongst your herbs for delightful pops of heavenly blue.
🏡 In your garden
• Informal and cottage gardens
• Rock gardens
• Wildlife and pollinator plantings
• Borders and beds
• Annual drifts
• Herb gardens
🐝 Pollinator friendly
It attracts foraging insects, including honeybees, bumblebees, and various butterflies.
🐞 Wildlife friendly
Seed capsules left on the plants into the autumn and winter provide a food source for small seed-eating birds
🍴 Edible
The small, glossy seeds that can be harvested from your plants are the main edible part. They can be eaten raw, toasted, ground or cooked.
🎨 Natural dye plant
• This flax can produce a soft yellow dye or an olive-green shade if modified with an iron mordant
• Use a tannin pre-treatment followed by an alum mordant to bind the colour to cotton, linen or hemp
💡 Did you know?
This is flax, the plant that gives us both linseed oil and the fibres used to make linen. Humans have been growing it for thousands of years. For the Latin-minded amongst you, it's Linum usitatissimum.
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