Love in the Mist, Devil in the Bush: Nigella
13th Aug 2014
The Nigella is a beautiful, unique flower. It has such a regal crown like pod, and while the greenery looks thorny it is actually very soft and delicate. Also known as Love in a Mist or (oddly) Devil in the Bush it produces black cumin seeds in its beautiful pods. The closed flower with it’s almost dill like greenery was one of the first botanical drawings I used in my pottery, and it’s remained a favorite over the years.
I have tried to grow it from seed a few times without any luck. Starters were a bit hard to track down, but this year I found some at my local nursery and devoted one of my raised beds to them. I just let them go wild and they have been surprisingly successful and low maintenance to grow, with the help of lots of rain and hot summer sun.
- Apparently the seeds are self-sowing when the pods are left to mature, so I am hoping that this bed will return next year and propagate as easily as they have grown this year.
I am looking forward to watching the flowers turn into pods, which I think are just as stunning as the flowers themselves, if not more so! I want to find some other varieties and colors…this feels like my biggest success in the garden this summer, Hooray!
