Nigella damascena
Love-in-a-mist
Common names: Devil in the bush, Ragged lady
At a glance
- Light
- Full sun
- Pot size
- from 3 l
- Lifespan
- Annual
- Hardiness
- Cold damage below −7 °C
- Water need
- Low
Photo: Kaldari · Public Domain · Source
Description
Love-in-a-mist enchants with delicate blue flowers that seem to float in a fine veil of threadlike foliage. After flowering, decorative balloon‑like seed pods form, which dry well in bouquets for a long time. The annual plant readily self‑seeds.
Care instructions
Sow love-in-a-mist from April directly into a sunny bed; it does not tolerate transplanting well. A fall sowing in September yields early, vigorous blooms. Water sparingly; it prefers drier conditions. Allow some seed pods to mature, then it will reappear on its own the following year.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
SowingApr–May, Sep
HarvestJul–Aug
Germination
- Soil temperature
- from 12 °C, ideally 18 °C
- Days to sprout
- 10 to 20 days
- Light
- Needs darkness to sprout
- Sowing depth
- 0.5 cm
- How to start
- Sow straight into the bed
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
sandy, loamy, well-drained, lean
Sow love-in-a-mist directly into ordinary, well-drained garden soil. It prefers soil that is rather loose and lean to heavy and rich. It cannot tolerate waterlogging at all; it feels particularly at home on chalky soils.
Feeding
Light feeder
Months
Mar–Apr
In the bed you hardly need to fertilise; it thrives even on poor soils. If you like, work a thin layer of ripe compost in shallowly in spring before sowing. Too much nitrogen only encourages foliage instead of flowers.
Overwintering
Love-in-a-mist is an annual and dies after the seeds ripen. You do not need to do anything to overwinter it; simply leave the seed heads standing so that it self-seeds and germinates anew in spring. If you sow in autumn, cover the small seedlings with a little foliage or brushwood so that they overwinter as rosettes and flower earlier.
Propagation
Methods
- From seed
Propagate love-in-a-mist by sowing only. Vegetative methods are ruled out for this annual, because it forms no overwintering rootstocks, tubers or runners, and soft-stemmed annuals cannot be rooted from cuttings. Sow directly outdoors from mid to late March, as soon as the soil is no longer frozen; for uninterrupted flowering into autumn, sow again every two to three weeks. An autumn sowing (September/October) is also possible: the seedlings overwinter small and flower earlier the following year, but are at risk from late frosts. Cover the seeds only thinly with soil and press them down lightly. At around 16 to 18 °C the first seedlings usually appear after about two to three weeks. Nigella reacts sensitively to root disturbance and transplants poorly. So sow straight into the final position and thin to about 15 to 20 cm. Once established, it reliably self-seeds and returns every year; you only need to leave a few seed heads standing.
Companion planting
Good neighbors
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
For your garden
Grow Love-in-a-mist yourself
Gartenkern tells you when frost is coming, when to sow and when to harvest, for your location.
Free, no time limit
Notes from real gardens
What other gardeners have written down about this variety, anonymous and voluntary.
No notes shared yet. Will you be the first to write one down?