The one that started it all. Gertrude Jekyll picked this clear sky-blue form out of variable seed stock in the early twentieth century and used it to blur the edges of her formal borders, and it has been the standard cottage nigella ever since. It holds an RHS Award of Garden Merit.
Each semi-double flower sits inside a ruff of thread-fine green bracts, which is the mist of the common name. At 45 to 60cm it needs no staking and asks for almost nothing. Then the second act: the centre swells into a striped balloon of a seed pod that stands through autumn and dries for months in a winter arrangement. Deadhead for a longer flowering season or leave the pods; it is one or the other.
Two practical points. Sow it where it is to grow, because the taproot hates being moved, and September sowing gives noticeably stronger and earlier plants than spring. And keep it hungry. Rich soil gives you more mist and fewer jewels, which is the usual reason a nigella disappoints. It self-seeds reliably and will hold its own corner for years.
