How to Grow Centaurea Plants in your Garden

Gardener's HQ Guide to Growing Cornflower, knapweed, and Basket Flower

There are many commonly grown garden plants that belong to the Centaurea genus, these include but are not limited to cornflower, Bachelor's buttons, Basket flower, Knapweed, Ragged robin, and Sweet sultan.

The variety means that the genus contains plants that are hardy annuals, biennials and perennials.

This means that the flowering season is also very variable, though annuals tend to flower from late in spring to late in the summer, whereas perennial members of Centaurea tend to flower in the spring or summer.

They tend to have deeply coloured petals of varying colours and vary in height from 30 to 90 cm, they make ideal plants for growing in simulated wild gardens.

How to Grow Centaurea

If planning to grow cornflower-like species outdoors then the seeds should be sown in sunny areas of the garden that have soil with good drainage, ideally the pH should be from 5.5 to 7.

It is best to sow the Centaurea seeds successively from just before the last frost of spring, or in the autumn.

If first growing indoors, then they normally take about one week to one month to germinate. Start off about 6 or 7 weeks before you plan to put them out into the garden, in the late spring.

Caring for Centaurea Species in the Garden

Centaurea require regular watering and ideally should be fertilized in the spring.

If you require more seeds then Centaurea annuals will self seed and you can divide perennial varieties in the spring.

I hope that you enjoyed this guide on how to grow Centaurea plants. You may also enjoy the following Gardener's HQ growing guides: How to grow Zinnia angustifolia and Argyranthemum frutescens plants.