Description
Matthiola – Stock – Gillyflower –
There are about 55 species of bushy, erect annual, biennials and perennials, occasionally subshrubs in this genus. They occur from scrub and hilly areas in Western Europe, North and Southern Africa, and Central and Southwestern Asia. The leaves are simple, usually lance shaped, sometimes pinnatifid or shallowly lobed, and gray-green to mid green. Matthiola species and cultivars are grown for their usually sweetly scented, pastel pink, purple, or white flowers that bloom from spring to fall. The flowers are cross shaped (double in some cultivars selections), and borne in terminal, spike like racemes or panicles. Grow in a mixed or annual border.
Cultivars of Matthiola incana are useful spring and summer bedding plants, and provide attractive cut flowers. They are often divided by horticulturists into the following 4 groups: Brompton stocks, grown as biennial, bear tall panicles of single or double flowers. East Lothian stocks may be grown as biennials or spring sown annual, more compact and smaller flowers than Brompton Group stocks, they produce spike like racemes of single or double flowers. Ten Week Stocks are grown as annuals, and may be dwarf or tall, dwarf cultivars, suitable for bedding or containers, bear single or double flowers usually in panicles. Tall cultivars bear mostly double flowers in dense, usually unbranched, spike like racemes. Column stocks are generally grown under glass for cut flowers and produce long, dense, upright, spike like racemes of mainly double flowers.
Grow in moderately fertile, moist but well drained, preferably neutral to slightly alkaline soil in a sheltered position in full sun. Give support to tall cultivars. Shelter from strong winds.
Prone to damping off, crown rot, gray mold, downy mildew, wilt, leaf spots, aphids, flea beetle, cucumber mosaic virus, club root, and cabbage root fly.
M. longipetala subsp. bicornis – Night Scented Stock – This erect, usually branched annual to 15″ tall bears its flowers in shades of pink, mauve to purple throughout summer and into fall if sown regularly throughout spring. Although the blooms are not very showy the scent, only detectable at night is strong and sweet.
Zones 6-10
