Because nigella blooms for only a few weeks, it is best to sow seeds two or three times from late spring to early summer. Flower colors include white, blue, pink and purple. Many gardeners like to gather the decorative dried seed pots for use in dry arrangements. When the pods begin to brown, clip them off and hang them in small bunches to dry.
Sow seeds in prepared beds and gently press them into the surface. Keep moist until the seeds germinate. Because of their lacy foliage, nigella seedlings are easy to recognize among weeds. Nigella usually grows better from direct-sown seeds than from transplanted seedlings.
Our Garden Planner can produce a personalized calendar of when to sow, plant and harvest for your area.
Annual root, taproot
- stem 30-40 cm, glabrous, erect, slender, angular, simple or with erect branches
- leaves bipennatisect, with linear straps, acute
- whitish or reddish flowers, small, solitary, long stalked
- sepals 5, erect, petaloid, caducous
- petals 5, tubular at the base, with 2 lips, the exterior bifid, half longer than the calyx
- follicles 2-3, fused in their lower half, with a beak 5 times shorter than them.
This plant is useful.
This plant might be poisonous
How to get rid of:
