Gardening

Limonium sinuatum Statice or sea lavender

Annual with papery flowers used in fresh or dried arrangements

It may be an annual in other parts of the country, but in frost-free sections of Southern California, statice is a constant. The plants may not be in bloom every minute, but they will be there, ready to spring into action when you least expect it.

Statice officially blooms in spring and summer, but many gardeners pick unofficial blooms well into December.

If you think you are unfamiliar with this modest but dependable flower, then you haven’t been dining out much; every other restaurant, high or low, seems to favor statice as obligatory table decor. It also has enjoyed high visibility because of all the attention focused on dried flowers in wreaths and other arrangements in the past few years.

Like the strawflower, it is a natural for drying because it looks dry even when it is dewy and fresh. Unlike the strawflower, it has no daisy-like familiarity; it doesn’t look quite like any other flower.

For one thing, the flower parts, the calyx (usually white) and the corolla (shades of blue, rose or yellow), seem to grow out of the ends of the stalks, as if they were meant to be leaves, while most of the leaves remain at the base of the plant. The sturdy flower stalks are easily cut and remain strong even after drying (although brittleness can be a problem). It is not at all fussy about soil, and it is remarkably drought-tolerant. Just be sure to give it good drainage.

Statice usually is available at nurseries in 2- and 4-inch pots, and it is very easy to grow from seed--easier now than a few years ago, in fact. When I first started growing it, the seed arrived in the form of loose dried flowers, uncleaned and with erratic germinating powers. Now many seed catalogues offer clean statice seed with more predictable germination, and some even give a choice of colors. (The one color I want I can’t get: plain old pink; I have to content myself with rose or fuchsia.)

Seeds are available in individual colors from The Country Garden, Route 2, Crivitz, Wis. 54114; Nichols Garden Nursery, 1190 N. Pacific Highway, Albany, Ore. 97421; W. Atlee Burpee & Co., Warminster, Pa. 18974 and Pinetree Garden Seeds, New Gloucester, Me. 04260.