I've been a fan for Larkspur since I was first introduced to it in my floral design class in college. Its full of many blooms, with soft feathery foliage, on a sturdy but whispy-looking stalk. It adds height and interest to a rustic collection of cut flowers from your yard, or a showy mass of blooms and color when collected in mass.
Not only is it beautiful, it is an easy and reliable growing plant! If you are first getting started with growing flowers I recommend this as your first attempt. And if you're successful, you can collect the seeds and seed again the following year!
Ok, so there are many varieties of Larkspur out there. My starter recommendation is Rocket Larkspur. This variety is suitable for just about every growing zone in the US. It comes in a mix of colors, from white, pink, blue and purple, with gradients of each of these colors. Last year I had one plant that was almost magenta in color, while all other shades of pink were softer. I collected those seeds from the magenta plant specifically, and have set aside for this fall.
I've ordered my seeds, now what?
Great! Outside Pride is one of my favorite seed retailers. Their seed quality is excellent, and as you can see from my picture above, germination did not disappoint. Hold onto those seeds to plant the week of Thanksgiving or just after.
Step 1
You need to prep your planting area. Don't freak out, its not back breaking manual labor. Spend some time weeding and removing any debris. My preferred method is to weed by hand, but depending on the weed and density of weeds you may need to break out some tools. Garden Claws, the upright manual hand tiller, are great for small spaces, and it makes quick work of loosening your compacted soil, and can also make weeding easier. Some weeds have shallow roots, so when loosening soil it makes it easier to pull up the whole plant! Shake the soil off the roots, and compost your collection.
Step 2
After weeding comes loosening the soil a bit more, and working in organic matter, such as compost. Over the year your soil will become compacted. Seeds are delicate and like a loosened soil to spread their roots. Because my preferred planting area is small, I can use a hand tiller relatively quickly to loosen things up.
With nice weed free, loose soil you should also work in some compost and slow release fertilizer. This will help feed the plants as they grow over the next several months and help provide stunning blooms! Compost also helps improve your soil, bringing welcomed underground guests, which help keep the soil loose, and improves moisture retention. Hard compacted soil is usually nutrient deficient, and its harder to retain moisture.
Step 3
Now it is time to spread the seeds. I sprinkle the seeds in the area of the bed I want a mass planting to be located. Some years its the whole bed, other times its sectioned to allow for other spring flowers. Larkspur seeds are about the size of a pin head, at most, so you don't need to bury them in the soil. General rule of thumb is you should not plant a seen more than 3 times the seed height. Larkspur seeds are small. The loosened soil creates a nice soft bed for them to land in.
Once you have sprinkled all your seeds out gently pat down the dirt. Give the area a gentle water shower and you're set. I treat it as a once and done step. Now we let Mother Nature take over. Late Fall in Central Texas brings cold fronts and rain. The typical weather for the area will be enough to satisfy seed germination
Springtime
Once spring starts creeping in, you will see the plants have a growth spurt. They will be feathery masses, sometimes resembling a Christmas tree in shape, but are very delicate. Blooms will start forming around March, and you will have flowers up until end of May.
What about next year? Do I have to plant again?
If you are happy with where you planted your Larkspur, you don't have to do anything! The plant will go to seed, and the seed pods will burst open and reseed. It didn't occur to me this fall that that was what had taken over the bed I was transitioning to different cut flowers. All the tiny plants had started germinating around November and I thought I had gotten some weedy compost. NOPE! It was all the seeds that fell that I didn't harvest myself.
Larkspur is an easy, no maintenance, fuss free plant. I highly recommend it to add spring color to your landscape, in addition to being able to also brighten up your home with fresh flowers.
Thank you for reading! I hope you found my recommendations useful. We'd love to hear from you!
Comments