Growing Forget Me Nots for the Flower Farmer
Forget Me Nots are one of those romantic flowers that despite their relatively simple, almost weedy appearance are an exceptionally graceful and valuable flower to grow for the flower farmer and gardener.
Although you can grow the perennial true forget-me-nots (Myosotis scorpiodes) more reliable are the annual Chinese forget-me-nots (Cynoglossum amabile) and are the ones that you’ll want to grow if you want to use them in bouquets and arrangements as a flower farmer.
The long stems, delicate single flowers that bloom all along the stem, the silvery-grey foliage and stems and even the green seedpods that form along the stem like beaded fringe are beautiful and fascinating and are unlike anything else you can grow.
And grow them you should, especially as a flower farmer!
Starting Chinese Forget-me-nots from seed
Growing Chinese forget-me-nots is a relatively easy process - the seeds are easy to start and they grow on very easily, and you can also plant in successions to continue harvesting from them all season long. Although we don’t plant them after early spring because their stems are too short for us to find them very usable here (in a dry and hot Zone 7b), you may have more success with them if you live in a climate with milder summer temperatures.
Chinese forget-me-nots are fairly easy to start from seeds so long as you know one secret - they need darkness in order to germinate.
Here’s how we get ours started:
1) We like to start them into 72 cell trays, filled with a good potting or seed starting mix
2) Seed the trays, sinking two seeds into each cell around 1/2” deep, ensuring they are down in the potting mix and getting some good darkness.
3) Place them on a heat mat set at around 75 F and they will pop up in a couple of days
4) Grow them out until they have a couple of true leaves, then get them out into the ground. They do best growing in cooler conditions with plenty of moisture and good soil.
5) To harvest, we’ll wait until the first very large single flowering stem starts blossoming. Cut deep to the base of the plant and then continue to harvest the side shoots for a couple of weeks.
Designing with Chinese forget-me-nots
I really love using Chinese forget-me-nots as a beautiful filler material - the small scale of their flowers are perfect for adding a bit of sparkle and romance to any arrangement and the lovely sky-blue is a perfect contrast to warm hues like pink and blush and peach.
On the other hand, I really also love combining them with whites and greens too - there’s something just very lovely about those blue flowers that are relatively rare to find in nature.
Chinese forget-me-nots with bachelor buttons and Queen Anne’s lace
The long graceful stems are wonderful for draping over the edges of containers, tucking and weaving between other flowers and materials and spilling over the sides of large vases and urns, adding lovely curving lines and drawing the eye of the viewer in.
They also work great when tucked into mixed bouquets, pairing well with a whole range of colors and textures.
We’ll be starting our Chinese forget-me-nots soon. What about you? Have you grown them before?