Blue Cornflower

Latin name: Centaurea cyanus

🌱 Days to Sprout: 5-10

😋 Plant food: after true leaves 

✂️ Thin to: 1 plant per yCube

🍅 Days to Maturity: 70

💡 Light Zone: Moderate

📏 Plant Size: 1 ft+

💚 Care Level: Beginner

Native to Europe, Blue Cornflower has traveled far and wide as a garden staple and is treasured for its intense, indigo-blue blossoms. It’s a common sight for cornflowers to grow wild in unkempt lands, creating beautiful meadows of blue. The botanical name refers to the myth of the Centaur Chiron who made a medicine with this flower to heal a wound from an arrow dipped in Hydra’s blood. The wound healed, and the flower was immortalized with the Centaurian name.

This edible flower’s deep blue hues display a color rarely seen in nature. Its flavor ranges from mild cucumber to sharply bitter. Blue Cornflowers also have anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties.

Enjoy Blue Cornflowers for their aesthetic appeal, or as a fine garnish. To steep into tea, dry the flower heads before steeping.

✂️ Pruning: Check the roots monthly and trim any that are brown or extending past the yPod. To keep the plant bushy, neat, and within your Gardyn’s light, occasionally pinch off the tops of the developing stalks. To encourage new flower bud development, remove dead flower heads, called deadheading. When deadheading, also trim back the bare stem that remains on the plant to prevent it from rotting.

🔎 Plant Health: Aphids are a common pest, but you can use our prevention tricks to keep them at bay!

🌻 Harvest: You can harvest individual blooms by pinching or cutting at the flower head’s base. To enjoy as a cut flower, cut stems and place in water immediately, or enjoy anywhere cut-free by using the Gardyn Vase!

Our Plant Health & Nutrition Team thoroughly tests each variety we offer to bring you the most flavorful and high-quality plants. We regularly rotate our plant portfolio, so please note, availability varies.