Miss Wilmott's Ghost is so named because a lady called Miss Wilmott thought every garden should have some and carried seeds in her pocket which she quietly dropped when she visited other gardens. She was a well-known horticulturalist in her time and the first recipient of the Victoria Medal of Honour in the RHS.
As I mentioned (after looking her up) in the other thread, Miss Ellen Willmott (1858 – 1934), see e.g. Wikipedia, is said to have scattered seed of it in other people's gardens. Maybe the silvery ghostly appearance of the leaves suggested that she'd passed by that garden. So it's just that seed falling from the plant in autumn, spending winter outside, is likely to come up in spring. The 'stratification' in a fridge is trying to emulate winter conditions (I think we already know here, but the 'fridge' thing is after they are sown and moist - keeping the dry seeds in a fridge might preserve them, but doesn't make them grow). And don't worry too much about the precise length of time in the fridge - I doubt anyone has actually experimented with all the different lengths of time. And always a chance that some will come up without all this fuss.
What a lovely story, This is why I so much love the English way of gardening!! I just ordered a new sachet of seeds of this lady's flowers (they must be real gems in the border), I will try different methods:) (littlegarden@, I re-read the post and after a while I understood)
I rather admire Mien Ruys @josinebakker2003. She designed a lovely garden I visited at Oostkerke near Damme in Belgium. She was very clever with perennials and colour.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
We've been growing this species (Eryngium giganteum aka Miss Wilmott's Ghost) for nearly 10 years now, and in our experience germination can take three months or more, so be prepared to wait a bit longer! It readily self-sows in the garden when left to its own devices, so for the future Pete.8's suggestion is a good one: simply sow in outdoor pots in autumn and let the changing temperatures trigger germination naturally. NB that this is a biennial, so all you'll get this coming year is a rosette of leaves. But the spectacular flowers make the 2-year wait well worth it! If you have any other queries about growing eryngiums there's a Facebook Sea Holly Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/725244401347246
Thank you, Spikyetc.@ for this new good advice: so, patience and a lot of luck to anyhow stay alive for two more years (never know with this corona-thing to see grow and flower this precious plant. That Miss Willmott, would she have guessed what she had triggered with her sneaky sowing !
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Willmott