Gypsophila Covent Garden

The annual gypsophila, and a different plant altogether from the creeping perennial most gardeners know. Tall at 45 to 60cm, with clouds of small open white flowers on fine branching stems, bred as a cutting strain with noticeably larger and whiter flowers than the perennial kinds.

This is the airiness in a florist's bouquet. Whatever else is in the vase, a few stems of this lift it and stop the arrangement reading as solid. It is also very fast, at six to eight weeks from sowing to flower, quicker than almost anything else you can sow.

The catch is that speed cuts both ways. Each sowing comes into flower fast, gives two or three weeks of cutting and then goes over, so a single spring sowing leaves you with nothing by July. Sow a short row every three weeks from March through June and you will have it all summer. It resents transplanting, so sow it where it is to grow. It wants sun and lean, free-draining, preferably alkaline ground; the name gypsophila means chalk-loving, and it means it.