Erysimum x cheiri 'Scarlet Bedder'

The 'Scarlet Bedder' Wallflower, also known as Cheiranthus cheiri or Wallflower ravenelle, like all the varieties in the 'Bedder' series, forms compact plants that bear brightly coloured flowers, perfect for enlivening the pastel shades of spring. This selection is adorned with large fragrant flowers of scarlet red tinged with orange, gathered in dense spikes. The flowering lasts for several weeks, sometimes starting as early as February in mild climates. With its vibrant colour and compact habit, it will brighten up sunny borders, rockeries, and even pots on the balcony or terrace. This plant, often grown as a biennial, is very easy to cultivate in the sun, in well-drained soil, even poor and chalky soil.

Erysimum cheiri, also known as Cheiranthus cheiri, has acquired different evocative vernacular names over the centuries and in different regions: it is sometimes called yellow wallflower, ravenelle, vélar or yellow violier, as it displays yellow flowers with a powerful clove fragrance. It is a plant of the crucifer family, native to southern Europe, well adapted to dry and chalky soils. This short-lived and not very hardy perennial is most often grown as a biennial or annual.

The 'Scarlet Bedder' wallflower is part of a horticultural series selected for its compact and branched habit and its very long spring flowering. It quickly forms upright, bushy, and compact clumps, with woody bases, covered with small lanceolate leaves, sword-shaped, brown-purple to bronze, with a satin appearance. Flowering usually begins in March and extends until the gates of summer. In mild climates, and provided it is cut back at the end of the season, this plant will be perennial (short-lived) and will even flower in winter. The 4-petalled flowers, 5 to 6cm (2in) wide, are fragrant in warm weather, gathered in racemes at the top of leafy stems 35cm (14in) tall. They are highly visited by pollinating insects that find one of the first nectars of spring at the bottom of their corollas.

Appreciated in gardens for its ease of cultivation and its propensity to self-seed in the most unlikely places, neglected by all other plants, the wallflower and its cultivars are excellent rockery plants, which thrive even in somewhat poor soils and above walls. These plants also work wonders in border plantings, alongside Damask Nigellas, Californian Poppies, perennial flax, or in mixed borders with taller plants like toadflaxes, mulleins, or Gauras, which are as undemanding as they are. It can also be grown in pots on the terrace, balcony, or near an entrance, to fully enjoy its generous flowering.