The Fast-Growing, Self-Seeding Flower That Fills Your Garden With Colorful Blooms

If you've been searching for gorgeous flower bed ideas that will wow your neighbors this spring, this unique flower will start sprouting up quickly and add a pop of bright color to your garden. With large sepals that somewhat resemble petals and divided leaves and petals, love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) has a distinct, eye-catching look and it's a flower that's naturally blue. Love-in-a-mist varieties are often beautiful shades of different blues, but sometimes they can be soft purple, white, or pink hues. Within three weeks of seeds being planted in the garden, these cottage-style flowers will start to sprout up, and within three months they'll be producing their pretty blossoms. While love-in-a-mist plants are annuals, they will go to seed once they stop blooming, allowing you to enjoy more flowers in the following year.

Once the flowers of love-in-a-mist plants fade, interesting seedpods emerge with rounded shapes, horns, and stripes running from the top to the bottom. These seedpods often look cute and are commonly used in dried flower arrangements. Though native to parts of Africa, Europe, and Asia, love-in-a-mist can enhance gardens throughout USDA zones 2 through 11. Depending on the climate where you live, love-in-a-mist may stop flowering as temperatures rise in the summer, as it's a cool-season plant.

Love-in-a-mist is one of the best flowers to plant during spring for a garden full of colorful blooms, and you can set your seeds in the ground immediately once the soil has thawed enough to work with again. Ensure they are about ⅛ inch deep in the soil, and soon you'll have gorgeous, unique flowers for your garden. Even though you can start sowing seeds in individual containers indoors a few weeks before spring, love-in-a-mist doesn't do well with transplanting, and it's better to grow them directly in your garden. Unfortunately, love-in-a-mist flowers will only bloom for a month or possibly two, but you can enjoy these flowers throughout the season by sowing more seeds every three or four weeks.

When planting nigella flowers, choose a spot in your garden that receives lots of direct sunlight. Love-in-a-mist plants will tolerate various types of soil, but these florals prefer it to be well-draining. The vibrant flowers will tolerate low amounts of water but do best with medium moisture. If you want your plant to continue blooming for longer than normal, you can deadhead the spent flowers, though this will stop the self-seeding process. For those who don't have space for a traditional garden, love-in-a-mist flowers will thrive in pots, window containers, and hanging baskets as well, allowing you to add a pop of blue blooms anywhere you'd like.