Gypsophila Snowflake
Notify MeBaby's breath is the flower everyone recognises from a bouquet without knowing the plant. Gypsophila paniculata 'Snowflake' throws up a wide branching haze of wiry stems carrying hundreds of tiny white flowers, most of them double, so the whole plant reads as a cloud rather than a set of separate flowers. The narrow blue-green leaves are almost invisible underneath. Flowering runs December to March.
That haze has a real job in a border: it fills the gaps between stronger shapes and softens hard colour without adding any of its own. Plant it between roses, beside achillea and eryngium, or through a gravel garden. It is one of the most useful cutting plants you can grow, working fresh in almost any arrangement and drying without losing shape.
Full sun and free-draining soil are essential, and a limey or neutral soil suits it best, so add dolomite or garden lime on acidic ground. The plant grows from a deep taproot and cannot be divided or moved once settled, so choose the spot carefully. Wet winter soil rots the crown. Space plants around 60 cm apart, as it takes up more room than it looks.
Reaches around 0.9 m tall, narrow at the base and much wider in flower.
Trimming: Shear the plant back by about a third once the main flush finishes, which often brings a lighter second wave. Cut the whole thing down to the crown in late autumn. Twiggy supports pushed in during spring stop the stems sprawling.
Deadheading: Impractical flower by flower. Cutting stems for the vase does the same job, and taking plenty encourages more.
Fertilising: Feed lightly in early spring. Lime matters more than fertiliser here, so check the soil pH before reaching for anything else. Avoid rich compost over the crown.
Watering: Water while establishing in the first season, then leave it. The taproot reaches deep moisture and the plant resents damp soil far more than dry conditions.
Pest Control: Few problems. Aphids can appear on new shoots in spring, and slugs occasionally graze young plants before they get away.
Disease Management: Crown and root rot in heavy or waterlogged soil is what kills gypsophila, so drainage is the whole answer. Botrytis can spoil flowers in a wet spell and affected stems should be cut out.
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