White Cleome Seeds (Cleome hassleriana)

Cleome hassleriana

White cleome, spider flower, prickly cleome: its long stamens extending beyond the corolla like slender legs have earned it its nickname. In white, the effect is spectacular at twilight—the flower seems to float in the dim light, and that is precisely when it releases its fragrance.

Characteristics:

• Architectural flowers: large white clusters with very prominent stamens, offering a tousled elegance.
• Tall annual: 1.20 to 1.50 m, ideal at the back of a flower bed or as a temporary screen.
• Very long flowering period: from July to October, as long as the sun shines and the soil remains moist.

Precautions:

• Its stems bear small thorns at the base of the leaves: wear gloves when handling or cutting it.
• Its foliage is slightly sticky and gives off a strong smell when crushed—harmless, but worth knowing before planting it along a narrow path.
• Frost-tender plant: it declines rapidly below 8–10 °C and is grown as an annual.

Sowing advice:

• Exposure: full sun, in a warm position—it is a South American plant.
• Soil: ordinary, loose and well-drained, while remaining moist in summer: this is the key to prolonged flowering. An addition of compost is beneficial, but avoid excess.
• Method: sow in pots under cover from March at 20–25 °C, or sow directly after the last frosts. Tip: placing the seeds in the refrigerator for a few days before sowing significantly improves their often temperamental germination. See how to sow seeds.

Planting advice:

• Transplant after the frosts, spacing plants 50 cm apart. Its height makes it an excellent backdrop for a flower bed or a summer screen along a fence.

Care advice:

• Water regularly to keep the soil moist. Discreet staking can help in windy conditions.
• Remove the pods that form beneath the flowers to extend flowering until October.

Beneficial combinations:

• It lightens a mixed border alongside its colorful counterpart, the pink cleome, or contrasts with cosmos and zinnia. See combining flowers in the vegetable garden.

Benefits for biodiversity:

• Its white flowers, fragrant in the evening, and long stamens are well suited to nocturnal pollinators: hawk moths come to feed on them while hovering at dusk.
• During the day, bees and bumblebees visit it abundantly throughout its very long flowering period.

Uses:

• Backs of flower beds, borders, path edges, summer screens and large containers. Its flower stalks hold up well in bouquets.

Harvesting your own seeds:
Let a few flowers develop their long, slender pods, then harvest them when brown and dry, before they burst open—with gloves, as the stems are prickly. Cleome also readily self-seeds. See storing your seeds.

Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Volcanoes of Auvergne, we choose reproducible, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, with no chemical treatment. Our conviction: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.

A white spider flower that lights up at twilight.