Grecian windflower

Anemone blanda is hardy and survives the Central European winter in the ground. After the foliage has died back, simply leave the shallow tubers in the soil; digging them up is not necessary. Good drainage matters more than cold protection, because winter wet makes the tubers rot. Only on heavy, wet soils or in frost-without-snow locations do you lay a thin layer of leaves or brushwood and remove it in good time in spring.

You propagate Anemone blanda most easily by tuber division: dig up the tubers in early summer after the foliage has died back, when the plant is dormant, and carefully divide the tuber clump with a clean knife into pieces that each carry at least one growth bud (an “eye”). Let the cut surfaces dry briefly in the air before you replant the pieces immediately about 5 to 7 cm deep or store them cool and dry until autumn. Do not plant the pieces out in a way that lets them dry out.

Over time the Grecian windflower forms daughter tubers by itself and spreads in loose colonies. Simply detach the small side tubers in the summer dormancy, as soon as the foliage has turned yellow, and replant them.

For sowing, collect ripe seeds straight after the fruit has ripened in early summer and sow them immediately in free-draining, sandy seed compost, since the seed germinates best fresh. Germination only follows after a natural cold period in winter; young plants flower only in the second or third year. Because Anemone blanda is a wild species and not a hybrid, the seedlings come largely true to type; division and daughter tubers are much faster, though. In favourable, partly shaded sites the species also reliably self-seeds and naturalises.