Pink seed strains of Nigella damascena seem to be increasingly fashionable at recent British flower shows. It’s a quirky flower, by any standards. Layered petals wheel around a crazy eye above lacy bracts.
The complex, decorative flower form has inspired many folk names. I use love-in-a-mist, but you may know it as love-in-a-tangle, love-in-a-puzzle, kiss-me-twice-before-I-rise, Jack in the green or lady in the bower.
Love-in-a-mist seed strains to look out for include:
Nigella damascena ‘Persian Rose’ – soft vintage pink shades.
Nigella damascena ‘Persian Jewels’ – mixed pink, mauve, blue and white flowers.
Nigella damascena ‘Mulberry Rose’ – mid pink with hints of purple
Nigella damascena ‘Miss Jekyll’ – award-winning blue.
Nigella papillosa ‘Delft Blue’ – white flowers, heavily mottled blue; purple pods.
My favourite pink is Nigella damascena ‘Persian Rose’. The buds open a creamy-green colour and gradually pinken. (I would say like the cheeks of my sweetheart when he realises he’s said something he ought not to have, except he doesn’t start out green and the process is rapid.) The colour is described antique or vintage, which I interpret as softish pink with a touch of grey.
Love-in-a-mist is a classic choice for cottage gardens and cutting gardens; the RHS also recommends them for coastal gardens. Fine, feathery foliage makes it a beautiful filler for a cottage garden style bouquet and it has much the same effect in the garden. Nigella’s decorative seed pods are also prized by floral designers. The picture below shows blue Nigella damascena in a flower meadow, the foliage reflecting the sunlight.
Love-in-a-mist is an annual, which means that the plant completes its life-cycle from seed within a year, fading away after it flowers and sets seed. It needs a sunny spot. You can extend the season of colour by sowing sequentially from early spring, scattering seeds over the same area several times, two or three weeks apart.
If you’re happy for nigella to self sow, leave some of the ornamental seed pods on the plants for the wind to shake free. If not, gather before the seeds ripen, enjoy the flowers or the pods in a vase or hang bunches of seed pods upside down somewhere dark to dry.
The pink love-in-a-mist flowers in these pictures were exhibited by Avon Bulbs at the Hampton Court Flower Show. You can source pink Nigella damascena seeds from them if, like me, you find their colour alluring.
Shared for Becky’s MarchSquares and Cee’s Flower of the Day.
Susan Rushton 
Oh how beautiful! I love those pink ones! Beautiful photos! Coïncidently I bought some of the pink seeds for myself this year and need to sow them now. I already have the blues in my garden and they come back every year on all kinds of places. They are great flowers! Have a wonderful day!
It’s lovely to know you’ll be enjoying them before too long.
Beautiful. I just planted some of these seeds for the first time. I am so excited to see them grow and bloom. Thank you for this informative post.
My pleasure! That’s a treat to look forward to.
Quirky but lovely!
It’s as if they had never seen a child’s drawing of a flower so didn’t know how to proceed.
That is one flower that needs a different name. If it were to grow in my garden, I would not tell my friends about it.
You wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation. 🙂
That has already been done.
One of my favorite annuals – I love that my mixed colors cross – something new every year.
Do you encourage them to self-seed in any way or just leave it to nature?
I deadhead all but a few to spread around and thin seedlings in the spring.
So beautiful. Thanks for the spot of colour. There is nothing growing in my neck of the woods.
It won’t be long now 🙂
I love these flowers and I was shocked to hear the name “Jack in the Green.” You see, I wrote a YA fantasy book about the green man and a teenage girl with a mystical connection to plants. In one scene the protagonist encounters flowers that talk and tell her secrets about the green world and how to connect with it. Those flowers? Nigella. 🙂
That’s what I call a mystical connection!
Absolutely! 🙂
Loving your Nigella damascena. I don’t know much about the species of flowers, but I do greatly appreciate viewing them! Thanks for sharing!
My pleasure!
Lovely flower. I am not familiar with it in the Southeast US. It is not native, so I wonder whether it will grow in Alabama. Lovely site, too.