Montpellier Soapwort Seeds (Vaccaria hispanica)

Vaccaria hispanica (syn. Saponaria vaccaria)

Montpellier soapwort, cow soapwort, cow soapwort, soapwort: not to be confused with common soapwort, its perennial cousin and true soap plant. This is an annual cornfield flower, once a companion of cereal fields, whose bright pink flowers on fine branching stems now work wonders in bouquets.

Characteristics:

• Generous pink flowering: a cloud of small bright pink to pale pink flowers, from June to September.
• Airy habit: fine, branching stems about 60 cm tall, with glaucous foliage.
• Easy annual: it grows quickly and readily self-seeds from one year to the next.
• Excellent cut flower: it lasts very well in a vase and lightens country-style bouquets.

Precautions:

• Its seeds contain saponins and are not edible. This species is purely ornamental.

Sowing advice:

• Exposure: sunny.
• Soil: light, well-drained, ordinary to poor, preferably calcareous—it is a cornfield flower accustomed to cultivated soils. It dislikes stagnant moisture and needs no fertilization: in soil that is too rich, its fine stems flop.
• Method: no stratification is necessary, contrary to what is often believed. Sow directly in place in spring after the frosts, or in autumn in mild climates for earlier flowering. Cover lightly. See how to sow your seeds.

Care advice:

• Almost none. Thin to 20 cm apart and stagger sowings every three weeks to extend flowering.
• Leave a few plants to go to seed for natural reseeding.

Harvest advice:

• For bouquets, cut the stems when the first flowers in the cluster open: the remaining flowers will bloom in the vase, extending their vase life.

Beneficial pairings:

• It combines beautifully with cornflower, wild poppy and love-in-a-mist, its historic companions in the cornfields. See our seeds for poor, dry soil.

Benefits for biodiversity:

• Highly attractive to pollinators, it draws bees and butterflies over a long summer period.
• It belongs to the group of cornfield flowers, which have greatly declined in our countryside: sowing it helps preserve them.
• Its seeds feed small seed-eating birds in autumn.

Uses:

• Country-style beds, borders, banks, rock gardens and flowering meadows. Above all, it is an excellent cut flower, highly sought after by florists for lightening arrangements.

Symbolism:
Like all cornfield flowers, cow soapwort evokes the simplicity of fields from days gone by and the understated beauty of things that grow without being sown.

Harvesting your own seeds:
Leave a few capsules to turn brown and dry completely on the plant, then turn them upside down over a container: the black, round seeds fall out easily. See how to store your seeds.

Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, without any chemical treatment. Our belief: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.

Sow a forgotten cornfield flower, as beautiful in the garden as it is in a bouquet.