The name oversells it, and the flower is better for it. This is not a fire-engine red but a deep carmine-ruby, a berry tone that reads ruby in strong sun and shifts towards crushed velvet in softer light.
That warmth is what it brings to a border that has gone all blues and greens. It sits with the apricot and blush end of the cutting patch far better than a true scarlet would, and it is one of the few cornflowers that works in a warm-toned bouquet rather than a cool one.
Everything else is standard for a tall double Ball cornflower: silver-green stems, feathery foliage, generous production for as long as you keep cutting. The petals are edible and hold their ruby colour unusually well when dried, so they are worth saving for cake work. Sow it in autumn if the ground is workable. September-sown plants come through the winter and make substantially bigger, more branched specimens the following year than anything started in spring.
