Scabiosa Black Knight
Almost black, and startling for it. 'Black Knight' opens deep maroon pincushion flowers so dark they read as black from a few paces, each domed head studded with small white stamens that give the colour something to work against. The flowers sit on long thin stems above a low rosette of grey-green leaves. It flowers right through summer and into early autumn.
This is a cutting-garden plant above all. The stems are long, straight and last well in water, and the dark colour does something in an arrangement that no other flower manages. In the garden it belongs in a cottage border, a wildflower patch or a hot planting, and bees and butterflies work the heads constantly.
Grow it in an open sunny bed with soil that drains, spacing plants 30 cm apart. In NZ this is treated as a hardy annual, though in mild gardens it often carries through and behaves as a short-lived perennial for a season or two. At a metre tall it needs support in an exposed spot. Self-sown seedlings appear readily but rarely match the parent colour.
Reaches 0.9 to 1.1 m tall with a spread of around 0.3 to 0.5 m.
Trimming: Keep cutting. Taking stems for the vase is the best thing you can do for this plant, since it responds by producing more. Clear the whole plant once it stops producing new buds.
Deadheading: Deadhead or pick every few days. Left to set seed the plant slows down and is over early, so this is the single job that decides how long the season lasts.
Fertilising: A light general fertiliser at planting and again once buds start forming is enough. Rich soil produces tall soft stems that collapse before you can pick them.
Watering: Water steadily through summer, particularly while flowering. Plants under stress produce short stems, which matters more here than on most perennials because the stem length is the point.
Pest Control: Aphids gather under the buds and hose off. Slugs and snails take young plants before they get away, so protect new plantings.
Disease Management: Powdery mildew appears on crowded plants late in the season. Space them properly, water at ground level, and pull plants out once they are finished rather than leaving them to rot in the bed.
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