PlantFiles: Rocket Larkspur
Consolida ambigua

I have always loved growing and enjoying the beautiful blooms. Always let it go to seed too.

I sowed seeds for these over 10 years ago and they are still around. I treat them as weeds and pull up the ones that are growing where they aren't wanted. Another good plant for a dryland area. Bees and butterflys love this plant.

Self-sow with abadon, making a really good show in early summer.
They do better thinned out. I even experimented pinching back some of the plants before the buds form, making them bushier and blossoming a little later.
They resent the summer heat by looking quite straggly in mid-season. At this point, they can just be pulled out as there are enough seeds in the ground by then to assure next year generation.
The seed are easy to grow. I started mine in flats about 3 weeks before planting outside just because I do not do very well planting anything directly outside.

Wonderful to grow here in zone 5 as an annual, although it often self seeds and you have a few volunteers the following season. I grow it in order to cut and dry for use in dried arrangements. All types will dry, but the big double showy blue, hot pink and lavender flowers provide the most dramatic accents.

Mine generally thrive in full sun, well drained soil. I've had good and bad results when sowing in late april. I generally cover the seeds with remay cloth set about 6"-10" above on stakes. This helps protect the seeds and seedlings should we get a good frost, which sometimes occurs as late as the end of May here. The worst results - 95% die off occurred when we had an extremely wet spring with May rains topping the 6" mark. During an average May with approximately 4" rainfall, no frost after May 10th, and plentiful sunshine, the seedlings thrived, grew rapidly and began to flower in June. Will continue to flower for me here in a good year until frosts in October.

These are really easy in Minnesota. They do reseed on their own, but I prefer to disturb the soil and plant new ones every spring. I put them in the ground as soon as the soil is workable, which around here is near the spring equinox. Water the soil regularly until they appear. The seedlings are definitely frost hardy. The only problem I have had is occasional attacks from aphids, which can be controlled pretty easily. They reseed in your lawn too, where they grow quite well even after mowing, so watch out! Thompson and Morgan has a nice variety of colors.

This is the classic 'grandmother's garden' plant! I love it! It really does evoke memories of my grandma growing it in her garden. I bought 4 already blooming plants and they did fine in the garden. This plant is probably my alltime favorite. The only thing I have not been successful in is in getting it to grow when I strew the seeds in the soil.

I remember these being naturalized in a neglected cemetary when I was a kid. They put on a spectacular show every Spring for years.

Mine came up on their own a few years ago and have been self-sowing ever since. The most common ones are the dark almost-blue single ones, but I also get that color in the double form, and light purple in the single, double, and quadruple form. I also get single light pink ones, but I don't care much for those.

One of the first things to sprout in spring. Reseeds wonderfully here in my zone 8b garden. Beautiful 1" wide purple blooms atop two or three foot tall stalks of ferny blue-green foliage. It's all over by the time temps reach 90 degrees.

Big dbl.blooms to 2in.across, cover extra
dwarf 2ft.plants'

Easy from seed. Self-sows. Best sown in the fall. Low nitrogen is best for flower production. Can become invasive. Plant in full sun or part shade.
Tincture of seed is insecticidal.