Trough flowers

Identification of the flowers that were not flax after all in the trough:

Gypsophila vaccaria (known in America as cow soapwort)


and the white Gypsophila elegans, which doesn't have the lobed calyx(?) behind the flower, or the distinctive whirled petals of the flower at the bud stage, and resembles flax more closely.

(The florist's baby's breath)

The clover was, indeed, clover, but it turned out to be *red* clover (and the poppies in that seed packet to be little white poppies!)

Flax

I just wish to place on record how extremely pleased I am with my flax crop this year :-)

The individual flowers are very short-lived, but the plants keep on putting out more and more blooms on a daily basis, and they are very pretty -- I love the dainty blue-striped flowers. I've had an almost constant display for what feels like weeks [edit: since circa May 26th] out of half a dozen plants in the space of a six-inch pot and there is clearly going to be a decent harvest of seed afterwards.

Once I stopped feeding them they stopped flopping (I note that excessively fertile soil was originally noted as a problem, but I'd forgotten that!) and are now very happy, sturdy plants. Definitely worth growing again just for the sake of the floral display -- and we know they breed true, because this was from last year's seed!