PlantFiles: Spider Flower, Spider Legs, Grandfather's Whiskers
Cleome hassleriana 'Rose Queen'

I love this plant. It comes back from seed each year in my garden. I also save seed.The hummingbirds enjoy it to.

Found the information very interesting.

Wonderful plant - easy to germinate and grow, blooms profusely (with no deadheading necessary) all summer. Tall and reasonably self-supporting (I grew these against a low fence). It germinated great for me. Seeds were sown directly in the garden early May, and it bloomed early July into October.

This plants has wintersown well for me for the last two years. If you have trouble germinating it inside, you might want to try wintersowing them. No nicking, soaking, or any other treatments necessary. Just plant in the milk jug in the usual wintersowing manner, place out in the snow, and in spring you have many wintersown seedlings.

Karen

This was a difficult germination. I replicated the effect of a natural seeding by alternating hot sun and cold nights, and this worked. I'm doing a large community planting and needed about 200 starter plants, and got them!

Details: I soaked the seed for two days in the paper towels/baggie method, then transferred them to ProMix in a strawberry 'clamshell' plastic container, covered about 1/4" deep. I left them outside in the sun and cold nights, and the seedlings thrived. I pricked them out into cube-packs to grow on, then planted. The seedlings started to develop buds after 10 weeks.

This plant brought the neighbors out! They all wanted to know where I got it. Several wanted to collect seeds. But most of the seeds fell to the ground. I am wondering if I am going to have a garden full of Rose Queen this summer! I hope so!

This bloomed the entire summer.

This is a finicky plant to start from seed indoors. I have tried everything to boost consistency without any success. The strange thing is that it is a great WS plant (winter sowing) and better yet, it self seeds very easily. The plants just keep coming back once you have a patch of it established.

It also comes in a deeper solid pink (almost purple), and a solid white.

I like the way this looks, but I found it to be a rabbit magnet . The last time I grew it, it seemed to draw every rabbit for miles around and they ate a fair-sized patch of it down to the ground in preference to a very broad range of other plants. One rabbit family actually moved into the garden that year--something that hasn't happened before or since. The dog quickly took care of the rabbit problem, and I have not tried growing these since.

This is my first year growing this plant in my garden, but it sure won't be the last. I have the pink and also the white and I'm most pleased with their performance. They are about three to four feet with massive blooms, lots of foliage and very erect and sturdy. A thunderstorm blew them down, but I just tied them up for a few days and they are now good as new. Two plants fill an 7' X 3' edged bed just right. I have planted some Speedwell in the bed also and seems to contrast well as it is quite tall and compact. I plan to try other border plants next year. To me, this is a 5 star plant and I would encourage everyone to try it.

I bought this as an annual one year. To my surprise it self seeded thereafter year after year for the third time now, in the Washington DC area. Lovely, easy, very prolific, tall but does not require staking.

I love it!! It grows easily in nearly any soil type, and fills a nice space in the garden. If you don't mulch it will reseed heavily, so if you don't collect seed or pull before seeding time, you will have babies everywhere next year here in OH.

I find Cleome a very beautiful plant, although it can be invasive if you live in tropical areas with poor, acidic soil

Having grown them for many years, I first obtained this plant from my grandmother's garden. Found it an excellent grower and prolific, growing new plants each year from the previous year's seed droppings. I've never started from seeds outside the garden itself. They seem to thrive in varied conditions, but do like lots of sun. They aren't particularly common in this area of East TN, but there is a mauve/white variety as well as a purple/white variety near me. Whether this is actually a different plant, or a result of soil differences, I don't know.
Also, I noted that it attracts butterflys to my garden area. Few years ago, on a trip to the Nature Center at the Land Between the Lakes on the Kentucky/Tennesse border, I noticed these plants growing in their garden on the grounds of the Center. They sell the seeds from plants they have grown, as "butterfly plants".

Only negative note was before flowering one year, a contractor thought it looked similiar to "marijiuana plant"!!! I quickly set him straight !

I find Cleome seed very hard to germinate - it is listed as needing light to germinate, and T&M says it also needs fluctuating temperatures.

Beautiful soft pink to medium pink. Start out medium pink and fade to light pink.