Growing Stock Flowers in my Cottage Garden

Growing Stock Flowers in my Cottage Garden. July 10, 2024.

The dawn hour reveals the cool pink of the freshly blooming Stock flowers. The flower-clustered head of the Stock flower is a prettier flower than its name suggests. Traditionally, Stock is also referred to as Gilly flowers or, worse still, Hoary Stock. Hoary feels almost insulting to this beautiful floral creation. And well, Gilly is just ridiculous. Their scientific name, Matthiola Incana, is a mouthful, so I will just continue to refer to them as Stock. Indeed, the Stock flower belies its name, rounding out the cottage garden with a soft sweetness and perfuming the surrounding air with its deliciously sweet clove scent, bringing to mind cotton candy clouds of pink. This old-fashioned flower faithfully stands upright with heavily scented blossoms that bring joy to the cottage garden.

My gardening experience with Stock amounts to almost nothing, as they simply have never come to my attention. A year or two ago, a tag caught my eye of a vintage mix of stock flower plants at a local nursery, so I bought some. The results weren’t impressive enough for me to add them. The plants seemed insignificant, which could have been a number of things. However, last winter I decided to give them another chance and ordered several colors of Iron Stock seeds, something I am now glad I did. The Iron Stock seeds added tall, creamy shades of yellow, light pink, and white stock to the herbaceous border at Hidden Bluff. Seeing these pretty flowers full-grown in our garden is a joy, as is getting acquainted with them.

Getting Started…

The Stock flowers did take quite a while to get started. I sowed them outside in early Spring per instructions for our garden zone 8b/9a, but they took a while to germinate. When they did finally sprout, they seemed to stay tiny forever. I think they were just waiting for the sun to be warmer. Once the weather heated up, they began to take off. When the triple-digit weather arrived, I was concerned about how they would hold up, but they are doing amazingly well. That being said, I am quite positive that, like most temperate climate flowers, they wouldn’t prefer a steady diet of 100-degree weather.

Eventually, I will harvest seeds, although it will be interesting to see if they self-seed easily. Already, I have spotted a seed pod. Later this summer, our greenhouse will go up, and I will try my hand at starting seeds over the winter using the harvested seeds.

Formally identified in the 16th century by an Italian doctor, the Stock flower has long been a part of the cottage garden. Its popularity continued through medieval and Victorian Europe, and especially in Germany. They aren’t garden superstars like the rose or peony, and they certainly don’t strive to outshine the others, but as solid garden companions, they blend in pastel harmony with the rest of the garden with a nice, long blooming season of about 2 months.

Growing Stock Flowers in my Cottage Garden

The Stock appreciates regular watering, but currently is an easy flower to care for. Supposedly, it is drought-tolerant and even a bit shade-tolerant, although ours are in full sun. It likes neutral to alkaline, well-draining soil. One of the reasons I added this to the garden was for its reputation as a great cut flower, and looking at its sturdy stems and hardy flowers, it is easy to see why. One is even still growing after its main stem was mostly severed. It is a great filler flower for a bouquet. Stock flowers are of modest height, with flowerheads composed of many small flowers. They come in a wide variety of colors for those who prefer colors other than pastels.

General gardening sources seemed a bit mixed on the characteristics of stock, leaving me wondering. Some call for sowing in early Spring, and others in late summer, for flowering in the Spring. Maybe it’s both? And is it annual, tender perennial, or biennial? Sources also vary on this. I guess I will wait to see what happens as this flower friendship grows!

Have a beautiful day!