Hi all...
I would like to know a few details about the Scabiosa plant.
I know that there are species that are used for pots and others that are used for cut flowers.
my question is are they the same species?
which are the best species on the market today?
are they day length sensitive?
what are their growing conditions (temp, light, season etc...)?
if anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated
Best regards
Tom.
p.s. happy new year to all:)
SCABIOSA information
Hey Tom. I doubt I can help you much. The only experience I have is I ordered one of these, white pincushion, from an online site and planted it. It bloomed once and has been in the ground for about three months. It has not grown or done anything but sit there. I thought it would be a really cool flower but so far I am not impressed. It is probably just where I planted it and it may get walked on some as I have too many flowers in my garden to be able to walk. Since it lies kind of close to the ground I bet it gets stepped on. I hope someone will help you because I think they could be great flowers in the right environment. Just not mine. lol.
Leslie.
Hi Tom,
I have the blue pincushion flower, great flowers, the butterflies love it, I have just started white scabiosa and scabiosa stellata from seed, they are going great guns, I think that you will find that scabiosa are like other plants, different looking flowers and heights depending on species. It dont hurt to try, I will enclose some seeds with the other seeds that I am sending, going to the post office on monday, will post away.
Annette
ANNETTE !!!!!!
HOW ARE YOU,,,,,,
i have not heard from you in quite a while... i have sent you an email but have not heard from you... you probably changed it....
I have some seeds to send to you:)
regards
Tom.
lostintexas
Thanks for the info:)
What kind of environment is Zone 7b?
maybe with my limited knowledge i could help you:)
Tom.
Hey Tom,
Kind of hard to describe the environment here. Lets see. For the last 10 years we have been in a horrible drought, we have water restrictions and can only water so many days a week, and then this year we have received twice as much rain already as is normal for the whole year. The summers are usually from May to September and temps in the 90s and 100's. This year we have not reached 100 yet. The soil here is clay and as hard as a rock, red which turns everything else red. Does that help any? I water my plants pretty much every day or at least when they are wilting which is about every other day. Let me clarify, with the water restrictions we can water by hand held hose anytime just not with a sprinkler. So I hand water a lot. Things seem to be doing pretty well and not dying, just not growing as much as I would like. This is a very new garden I have put in so I am hoping next year it will fill in and look a lot better. Also I consider the garden a butterfly/hummingbird garden so that is one reason I tried the pincushion flower. I have had it in the ground for about 2 1/2 to 3 months. It has not grown an inch, flowered once right after I put it in the ground and just pretty much lays there all day. Now granted the plant was not very big when I planted it but it has not grown at all. So I don't know if it is still not getting enough water, too much water. It is in part shade. Around here, during a normal summer, when plants say full sun I usually put them in a little shade as full sun here is just blazing hot and not much will survive. Well that is about it. Maybe you can help me here, all help is always appreciated. Thanks for offering.
Leslie
I grew Scabiosa 'Ace of Spades', and 'Ebony & Ivory' in the summer of 2006. I bought the seeds from Thompson & Morgan. They germinated well, and I was able to use many of them for cut flowers. I moved in the spring of 2007 and don't know how many reseeded, but I bet there were a bundle of them. These were annuals. I had perennial Knautia macedonia that was similar to the Scabiosa, but there were more flowers on the annual Scabiosa.
Karin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This message was edited Sep 22, 2007 4:02 PM
Hi! I love Scabiosa and my experience with it is that it does much better in a very humus-rich, fertile soil than in a dryer, poorer soil, though most references report "easy to grow in any soil" etc etc. I have grown it here (zone 7) and also at another home very close to zone 6. The only place I've had success was when it was in sun, but with fairly moist, rich soil. I have a raised bed here in zone 7, sunny conditions, but the soil dries out fairly quickly, and is not as rich in organic material--I can't keep Scabiosa alive in that bed. The best growth and flowering I've seen was when I planted them in a bed that was filled with composted grass clippings mixed with top soil and the existing clay in a warm and humid climate. They loved it!
You're right that there are many many species of Scabiosa. The most common and largest flowering that I am aware of is Scabiosa causica, and there are many named strains. Smaller common ones are Butterfly Blue and Pink Mist which are a different species - columbaria, or perhaps a cross. S. japonica is an even smaller gem, usually used in rock gardens, but adaptable to normal garden conditions too. I've grown a few other species too, and they pretty much turn out to be gangly, and not very garden worthy, IMO.
Oh, lost, I hope you haven't given up on your scabiosa. Mine didn't do much the first year I planted them, either. It seemed to take a year for them to get well-established. But the next year, they were the first things blooming, and didn't stop until frost.
Here's a couple of before-and-afters. This one is newly planted in 2005.
Here's the same plant in April 2006. It was bigger this year.
