Centaurea Cyanus White Ball | White Cornflower

This white form of the popular cornflower is as bonny a buttonhole as you can get! Double, white ruffled petals surround the central blush-pink stamens like an Elizabethan ruff making this hardy annual a must for cottage and white-themed gardens as well as the cut flower vase. In as little as 10 weeks from a spring sowing, early morning pickings of this Centaurea will give up to a week of blooming splendour to a cut flower vase. Centaurea are tall plants and must have support or the stems will bend. Growing instructions: Surface-sow seeds in trays filled with good quality compost, and germinate at 50-61°F (10°C-16°C). Pot on when they have put on their first true leaves and harden off before planting out after the frosts have passed. Alternatively, sow directly in late spring or early summer, and thin out to 30cm as they grow. Cornflowers prefer poorer soils, so do not use fertiliser. Deadhead regularly to prolong flowering. In autumn cut the faded flower heads down to the ground and compost the dead stems. Seeds sown in autumn and over-wintered in a cold frame will produce plants that will flower earlier in the year than those sown in spring. Sow: March to May or September to October Flowering: July to September or May to July