Antique Flowers

Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate is a delightfully named, decidedly old-fashioned flower that has been kicking around gardens for a very long time. Described in the 1917 Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture as “an attractive old-fashioned plant growing as high as the fence,” it has been in gardens since Victorian times, surviving the ages by being passed around.

The old flower, Polygonum orientale, is available in only one seed catalog, but you can still find it in gardens because many old-fashioned flowers are extra-easy to grow, especially from seed sown in spring or fall.

Most old-fashioned flowers are best planted during our spring planting season, which runs from mid-March until late May, because they are perennials that are readily available in spring or because they are summer annuals, like kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate.

It can be planted only from seed in late March or early April, but don’t fret about starting with seed; it comes up readily.

Says the Standard Cyclopedia: “It is most easy of cultivation; in fact, it usually self-sows in old gardens.”

Although an annual, it grows big and bushy, with long, droopy flower spikes of the brightest possible pink that will hang over the garden gate to welcome visitors with a buss.

It’s what might be called a floral antique, one of hundreds that gardeners are rediscovering. Whether for ease of culture, their simple unhybridized good looks or their fascinating history, these old-timers are staging a comeback.

First came the rediscovery of old roses, then the interest in ancient herbs and heirloom vegetables; now it’s the old-fashioned flowers’ turn to be appreciated and planted again in gardens.

Some gardeners are simply fascinated by the old English names. “They’re so much fun for people who like words and history,” said landscape architect Shirley Kerins, curator of the Huntington Botanical Gardens herb garden. There she grows many of the old-fashioned flowers, like love-in-a-mist and honesty, also blooming in the nearby Shakespeare garden.

Names like bachelor’s buttons, love-lies-bleeding, love-in-a-puff, ladies’ cushion and cupid’s dart “remind you of how fond people were of these flowers, and sometimes there are great stories behind the names.”

Bachelor’s button, for instance, is actually a bit of a misnomer. The name was originally applied to golden buttercups, whose flowers were like the polished brass buttons on young officers’ uniforms. Somehow the name became associated with the flowers we call bachelor’s buttons today, though cornflower is the better common name because they grew as weeds in English wheat fields.

The flower had an even earlier name, hurtsickle, because it “hindereth the reapers by dulling their sicles in the reaping of corn,” according to a 16th century herbalist. In its long history in the garden, it has also been known as blewbottle or blue bottle for its clear blue flowers.

A few gardeners are growing these antiques in an attempt to save old garden varieties on the verge of extinction, searching out ancient types and propagating them from seed or cuttings.

Others are revolting against the trend by growers and seed producers to make all flowers short and tidy, so they will be in bloom when you buy them at the nursery.

“Hybridizers have done such a disservice by making bedding plants so short,” say Mary Lou Heard of Heard’s Country Gardens in Westminster, so Heard’s has gone out of its way to offer seeds and plants of the more graceful old-fashioned varieties, as have some other nurseries.

They’ve found that many gardeners are no longer buying modern hybrids but are out shopping for antiques or good reproductions.

Sharon Milder is one. She has filled her Westwood frontyard with old-fashioned flowers, to make a convincing cottage garden full of old-fashioned charm. She has gathered old roses from obscure catalogs and scoured the nurseries for antique annuals and perennials.

Among the old roses are chinas, teas, noisettes and a lot of polyanthas. Growing all around them are old-fashioned flowers--Canterbury bells (including the storybook cup and saucer), sweet William, columbine, pinks, yarrow and valerian, once called Mercury’s blood by the herbalists. In the 16th century, one said that “it growith plentifully in my garden, being a great ornament to the same,” as it still does in the Southland.

One of the columbines she grows is named ‘Grandmother’s Garden,’ a new name for an ancient type of “rose” columbine. In the world of antiques, it would be called a good reproduction.

Some old-fashioned flowers are still common at nurseries, but to be truly authentic, you must search out old-time varieties.

Bachelor’s buttons, for instance, are common at nurseries in spring, but not the old-fashioned 3-foot-tall plants that made such good cut flowers. Those are harder to find and may need to be grown from seed.

English seed catalogs, like Thompson & Morgan (P.O. Box 1308, Jackson, NJ 08527-0308) often have older non-hybrid strains. Other catalogs, like Shepherd’s (30 Irene St., Torrington, CT 06790) include heirloom flower varieties along with their heirloom vegetables. They have antique strains of morning glory, hollyhocks, cottage pinks and love-in-a-puff, a quaint annual vine with balloon-like seed pods.

One seed company that specializes in antique flowers is Select Seeds (180 Stickney Road, Union, CT 06076-4617). This may be the only source of seed for kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate; the company also has the dark blue ‘Emperor William’ bachelor’s buttons, which grow to 3 feet and self-sow in the garden.

March is a fine time to plant or to sow seed. From the Victorian period, you can choose the bold and bright bedding plants that were set in elaborate beds.

These include amaranthus, alternanthera and coleus, grown for their bright foliage, plus geraniums, heliotrope, lantana, salvia and verbena. Love-lies-bleeding is a 4-foot-tall amaranthus with great dangling burgundy ropes of chenille-like flowers--pure Victoriana. Shepherd’s and Select sell seed.

Alternanthera will probably be found as an indoor plant, but try it outside as a summer bedding plant.

From the early 1800s come cottage garden flowers like busy Lizzie (impatiens), cupid’s dart (catananche), nasturtium, pincushion flower (scabiosa), sweet sultan (Centaurea moschata), painted tongue (salpiglossis) and four o’clock or marvel of Peru, to use its old name. All of these can be planted in spring to give your garden a touch of history.

This was also the Golden Age of the pansy, best started in fall, although violets go back to the earliest gardens and do well planted now.

There are plenty of flowers from Elizabethan times. Love-in-a-mist (nigella) can be planted at this time of year. It will reseed and be with you a long time. Kerins calls it “one of the most adorable weeds.”

Shakespeare’s lark’s-heel is still around as larkspur, the name referring to the pointed spur on the back of the flower. The annual is best planted in fall, but their relatives, the delphiniums, can go in now, as can another towering old-timer, the foxglove.

Sweet William was possibly named after Shakespeare (or William the Conqueror or St. William, depending on sources) and though it is seldom seen at nurseries anymore, it can be found in seed catalogs, and Select has the old velvety purple-red variety that stood 1 1/2 feet tall. It is planted in fall.

Touch-me-not (balsam) dates from the Tudors, as does honesty, with its see-through seed pods. This biennial will make flowers and pods in a few months in California.

Honesty and love-in-a-mist are two fun and extremely easy historical plants for children to grow.

Ladies’ cushion or thrift (Armeria maritima) dates to Tudor knot gardens and is still common, even sold as a ground cover. The name thrift comes from “threave,” meaning to keep together, which is what it did on sandy seaside soils.

Returning Crusaders brought back hollyhocks, which have been in gardens so long that they have disappeared from the wild. They also brought back the Cross of Jerusalem, today’s lychnis with its brilliant, magenta flowers. This unchanged perennial does extremely well in Southern California gardens.

Some of the original pinks and carnations survive, called gillyflowers or “gilofre” by Chaucer. A new seed-grown strain named ‘Velvet and Lace’ (Park Seed, 1 Parkton Ave., Greenwood, SC 29647-0001), looks like one of the old laced pinks.

Most of these old-fashioned favorites can be planted now, while calendulas (originally called marigolds), snapdragons, sweet stock, toadflax (linaria), English daisies, forget-me-nots and foxgloves are ancient flowers you can plant in the fall.

All of these have been around for a long time because they are fine plants that are still fun to grow.