I think this is a gilia, it's not a scabious. The flower head here is made up of several individual 5 petalled flowers on separate stems, scabious has all that head on one stem.
It is misleading isn't it, when you buy a packet of seeds thinking that they're native wild flowers but really they're wild flowers from more or less anywhere in the world.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
That's right dovefromabove, I find this with all the boxes of 'wildflower seeds that I buy. The box this one comes from was bought from Lidl. Also, as I've mentioned on other threads a lot of the seeds are not wildflowers but are garden cultivars, such as calendula, clarkia et al.
It still makes for a great display and many of them are insect friendly, so I don't think the bees mind! Different for the butterflies though, many of which need native plants to feed and breed.
The reason I buy these boxes is that they are very cheap and cover between 20 - 60m square. I'm unemployed at the moment so I can't afford to buy from those companies that sell native wildflower seed, where prices are about £5 for 10g of mixed seed and £1.25 for 1g of individual seeds.
Thanks for the help everyone! Now that you've put me on the right track I think that there are 2 species of Gilia in the garden, the one you mentioned plus Gilia leptantha. The first being a blue flower, and the second being one in shades of of pink.
And, Beaus Mum, they were sown directly into the ground in late spring into clay soil that had been dug over but not fertilised. And they're growing well in semi-shade in a West-facing garden.
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Looks more like this to me but with less flowers, foliage is very distinctive.
You can buy seeds in UK too.
I think this is a gilia, it's not a scabious. The flower head here is made up of several individual 5 petalled flowers on separate stems, scabious has all that head on one stem.
In the sticks near Peterborough
It is misleading isn't it, when you buy a packet of seeds thinking that they're native wild flowers but really they're wild flowers from more or less anywhere in the world.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
That's right dovefromabove, I find this with all the boxes of 'wildflower seeds that I buy. The box this one comes from was bought from Lidl. Also, as I've mentioned on other threads a lot of the seeds are not wildflowers but are garden cultivars, such as calendula, clarkia et al.
It still makes for a great display and many of them are insect friendly, so I don't think the bees mind! Different for the butterflies though, many of which need native plants to feed and breed.
The reason I buy these boxes is that they are very cheap and cover between 20 - 60m square. I'm unemployed at the moment so I can't afford to buy from those companies that sell native wildflower seed, where prices are about £5 for 10g of mixed seed and £1.25 for 1g of individual seeds.
Thanks for the help everyone! Now that you've put me on the right track I think that there are 2 species of Gilia in the garden, the one you mentioned plus Gilia leptantha. The first being a blue flower, and the second being one in shades of of pink.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilia_leptantha
And, Beaus Mum, they were sown directly into the ground in late spring into clay soil that had been dug over but not fertilised. And they're growing well in semi-shade in a West-facing garden.