Scabiosa ochroleuca Moondance
Cream rather than blue, which is what makes this scabious useful. 'Moondance' opens small buttery pale yellow pincushions that fade almost to ivory as they age, held on thin branching wiry stems well above a neat mound of finely cut foliage. The colour reads as a soft glow rather than a statement, and the plant flowers for months, from November right through to May.
That long season and pale colour make it a linking plant: it fills the gaps between stronger things and stops a hot border looking crowded. Use it through gravel gardens, meadow-style planting and dry sunny borders, and let it drift among grasses and achillea. It is a good and unusual cut flower, and bees work it heavily.
Full sun and sharp drainage are what it wants, on lean rather than fertile ground. It handles drought well once established and dislikes damp winter soil. Note that this is the compact cultivar rather than the straight species, which grows considerably taller. It seeds itself gently where it is happy, though seedlings will not necessarily match the parent.
Makes a clump around 0.4 to 0.5 m tall and much the same across.
Trimming: Shear the plant over lightly once the main flush slows, taking off the spent stems above the foliage, and it will come again. Cut back to the basal mound in late autumn.
Deadheading: Worth keeping up with, though the sheer number of small heads makes individual deadheading impractical. The periodic light shear achieves the same result in one pass.
Fertilising: Do not feed beyond a light dressing on very poor sand. This is a lean-soil plant and fertiliser gives you a floppy green mound with fewer flowers on it.
Watering: Water to establish in the first season, then rely on rainfall except in a long dry spell. It is properly drought tolerant and resents constantly damp roots.
Pest Control: Few problems. Aphids appear on new buds occasionally, and slugs may graze young plants before they toughen up.
Disease Management: Powdery mildew shows late in a humid season on plants that are crowded or under stress. Keep them spaced and open. Root rot in wet winter ground is the main cause of losses.
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