Cornflower - Centaurea cyanus- is a familiar and beautiful plant, evocative of a past era when they filled our cornfields with colour, growing alongside poppies and corncockles. Sadly this plant is now very rare in the wild, but thankfully its effects can still be recreated in gardens and road verges etc. Cornflowers should be sown onto well drained fertile soils where there is plenty of sunlight. The deep blue flowers appear in high summer and attract bees, and butterflies, followed by seed-heads that attract birds such as goldflinches. Cornflowers look best when grown with Corn Poppies, Corn Chamomile or Corn Marigold which provide support for the cornflowers and various spectacular colour combinations.
CORN FLOWER Seeds
How to grow Cornflower Seeds
Cornflowers should be sown directly outside in spring or autumn. As with poppies, cornflowers will not be very successful if sown into established grass, so seeds need to be sown onto cultivated soil and then firmed into the surface or lightly raked. Cornflowers grow best on light dry soils with plenty of sun. If sown in autumn or early spring, the plants will normally be in flower by June. A sowing in late spring will result in later flowering.