Lady’s Smock or Cuckoo Flower Seed

Description

Cardamine pratensis

Lady’s Smock or Cuckoo Flower

Lady’s Smock is a spring flowering perennial often found in damp and boggy areas. It is becoming rarer as areas like this are being drained and ‘improved’. Spikes of pale pink flowers grow to about 30cm tall, held above the rosettes of divided leaves. Appearing in April, at the same time that the cuckoos arrive, they welcome the spring, but disappear when the grass grows a bit longer. They are a member of the cabbage family, so are easy to look after, as long as the soil is moist enough. Young leaves taste like Watercress.

Sow in the autumn, or after a period of chilling in damp sand in the fridge for 4-6 weeks

Seed from Shropshire