Linum grandiflorum Charmer Mix - seeds

Linum grandiflorum 'Charmer Mix' is a mix of large-flowered flax with various colours including red to pink, white, salmon, lilac, and mauve, each flower displaying a beautiful red spot near the centre. Linum grandiflorum is one of the easiest annual plants to sow and grow. It blooms abundantly for several months, from spring to the end of summer depending on the climate. Its flowering, as simple and moving as poppies, is precious for quickly creating a rustic setting or adding a radiant touch to sunny flower beds and rockeries.

Linum grandiflorum 'Charmer Mix' is a selection of hardy annual plants from the linaceae family. The species is native to North Africa and is particularly suited to the Mediterranean climate, but it is highly adaptable to many regions, similar to Love-in-a-Mist Mrs Jekyll Blue, for example. Its vegetative cycle allows it to germinate in autumn, grow, flower, and reproduce before the arrival of intense heat. In cooler and more humid climates, it germinates in spring and blooms throughout the summer, tirelessly. Each plant forms a small clump with a narrow habit from spring, consisting of branching stems, quickly reaching 45 cm high and 15 to 20 cm wide. Its leaves are small, thin, and lanceolate, with a green-grey colour. The flat cup-shaped flowers measure 3 to 4 cm in diameter and are composed of 5 satin petals of variable colour depending on the variety, with a base of light or dark red. Each flower lasts only one day, but they are renewed for 4 to 5 months, from April to June in the south, or from June to late September to early October in the north. This plant self-seeds spontaneously in light soil.

The 'Charmer Mix' large-flowered flax is a sun-loving plant, highly resistant to drought. It can be sown directly in the ground, in sunny flower beds or rockeries, to create rustic scenes or natural areas, by associating it with Love-in-a-Mist, Amni visnaga 'The Giant', and California poppies. All these annual flowers easily find their place among perennials such as Verbena bonariensis, Euphorbia characias 'Wilcott', and Centranthus ruber. This annual plant pairs well with the swaying foliage of grasses such as Stipa pennata or Muhlenbergia capillaris.