I've tried and tried for a few years now to grow these wonderful smelling flowers. They do well until the flowers die...then the whole plant dies. I have both the double and single bloom variety. When the flowers die off, I've tried trimming the flowering stalk back to the next leaf growth...I tried cutting the whole branch back to the "main" stalk as well (although when the flowers are ON the main stalk I have no idea what to do). Nothing works. The flowers just never come back and the whole thing ends up wilted and dead. :'( I planted them in both flower boxes and in the ground. They have about 1.5 hrs of direct sunlight a day....mostly dappled sun. I don't water too much...they rot pretty easily. I LOVE these flowers. They just don't love me apparently. Man, they smell good!! I was hoping for a whole plot of them.
Stock flower? Never heard of it... Maybe because I don't grow flowers to cut? So I did an online search. They are pretty though. Sorry... no help from me... but I did learn something new!
I grew them as a greenhouse crop back in high school. I don't remember them being hard to grow, but they did attract the aphids quite readily. In my seed catalog it says for the south to sow in August for winter flowering and in the north to sow in Feb. for early spring sales. If I remember correctly they like cooler growing conditions than what we have right now. So they may be very heat stressed resulting in the loss of them.
I regularly grow Stock in one of my gardens. Some years they do great, this year the heat has done them in. They do need to be kept deadheaded or they go to seed and their life is over.
Is this the one you want to grow? Matthiola incana (Ten-week Stock, Hoary Stock) Now I want to find some seeds for fall planting. They would never live here past March but maybe it will be cool enough this fall/winter for them to thrive.
The deadheading is the part I am having trouble with - what point do you cut them back to? Some articles say remove the whole stem to the main stalk (leaves and all?) It makes more sense to cut the stems back to the next leaf growth - when I do that another bud tries to struggle its way up, but it dries up and poops out. It is hot here this year, but they are mostly in the shade and being by the coast it's usually cooler & more humid - and the current flowers look terrific....but when they go...it's all over. They are great flowers. The smell reminds me of Florida for some reason =)
