Plant Of The Month - March - Scabious: Butterfly Blue

Picture in your mind a quintessential English country garden, and there, in the traditional  border would be a clump of Scabious, flowering its heart out.  Known as the Pincushion flower, due to the prominent stamens rising from compact, round blooms, which look like pins in a pincushion, this hardy free flowering perennial has to be one of our favourite cottage garden plants.  Not only will it flower for many months it is also a delicious nectar bar for bees butterflies and other insects.  We have selected Scabious 'Butterfly Blue' and it's offspring 'Pink Mist' because, unlike the old fashioned Scabious causicus, they are very compact,flower continually,  and do not need staking or supporting. 

Scabious 'Butterfly Blue' was introduced to the UK Garden Centre market back in 1985 and was an overnight success, with over 20,000 plants sold in it's first season.  This lavender-blue flowering form was originally selected several years before from a wild Scabious in Ireland, by keen plantsman David Tristram.  He was searching for a sterile form that would set no seed and therefore keep flowering instead.  He then purchased a nursery in West Sussex and brought his new discovery with him.

As often happens, when a nursery propagates and grows many thousands of a single variety, a genetic mutation happens, called a 'sport'.  'Pink Mist' arose as a pink flowered shoot, which was spotted and grown on.  It proved to be stable, retaining its flower colour, so two years after the launch of butterfly Blue, Pink mist was brought to the public and they have both been immensely popular ever since.  Over 100,000 plants a year are produced from the grower 'FarPlants' alone.

They are much loved by butterflies and bees and make a superb cut flower for indoors.  They are easy to grow in a well drained soil, flowering from late spring through to late summer.  Rather than dead heading individual flowers, (a laborious task on such a free flowering plant!) a quick shear over the entire plant when flowering slows will encourage a new flush of flowers. 

They prefer a sunny position in a well drained neutral to slightly alkaline soil and only need the occasional feed.  In the right spot they are perennial for several years, and their compact nature makes them particularly suitable for pot culture.  Or plant at the front of your herbaceous border for a continuous display.  Scabious 'Butterfly Blue' goes particularly well with a dark purple-leaved Heuchera such as 'Binoche' and 'Pink Mist' looks wonderful next to the metallic variegated forms, such as 'Sugar Frosting'.