How to Grow Queen Anne's Thimbles in Australia

The seed sold here as Queen Anne's thimbles is fineflower gilia (Gilia leptantha), a hardy annual in the phlox family, Polemoniaceae. This Californian mountain wildflower carries small, loose clusters of lavender to violet-blue flowers, and bees visit them. The name Queen Anne's thimbles belongs to Gilia capitata, a different species with round pincushion heads. Neither is related to Queen Anne's lace (Daucus carota, Ammi majus). The usual mistake is treating it as a rich-soil summer annual, when it wants cool-season sowing and lean, fast-draining ground.

Three mistakes that matter

1. Sowing into warm weather. This mountain annual flowers in the cool of spring. Sown late, plants often meet summer heat and flower only briefly. Sow at the times in When to plant.
2. Rich, wet soil. In the wild it grows in open, rocky or sandy places with fast drainage and little water. Manure, heavy feeding and daily watering give soft growth that flops or rots. Keep the bed lean, as set out in Site, soil and setup.
3. Tearing the roots. Seedlings resent root disturbance, so bare-root transplants often stall and sulk. Sow where the plants are to flower, or in single cells planted out whole, as described in Sowing Seeds.

When to plant

Seed germinates fastest when the soil sits around 18 to 21°C; cooler soil slows it rather than stopping it. That points to autumn in most of Australia, with a second window from late winter into spring. In most southern gardens, have the autumn sowing in by Anzac Day. The plant is frost hardy, but young seedlings are less tolerant. On frosty nights, cover autumn sowings with a cardboard box or an old sheet until plants are established. Cool and alpine gardens, where frost is regular from about April to October, sow in spring.

Autumn sowings grow slowly through winter and flower in spring, while spring sowings flower faster but for a shorter time before the heat.

Site, soil and setup

Give it full sun, six hours or more a day, and a light soil that drains quickly after rain. It grows in acid, neutral or alkaline soil and in sand, loam or chalk, so pH rarely needs correcting. Moderately fertile ground is plenty.

Container growing

The low rosette and fine stems suit a wide pot or trough on a sunny step. A 25 cm pot holds about 8 L of mix and two plants; a 33 cm pot holds about 18 L and three or four. Fill it with a free-draining potting mix. Potting mix can carry Legionella bacteria, so wet it before handling, wear gloves and a mask, and wash your hands afterwards.

• Watering: pots dry out faster than beds, so water when the top of the mix feels dry, then let it drain.
• Feeding: seaweed solution at half strength (15 mL per 9 L) fortnightly from the first true leaves. Once the rosette forms, use 30 mL per 9 L until buds show.
• Position: the same full sun as a bed, somewhere open where air moves freely.

Sowing Seeds

Sow Queen Anne's thimbles seed where it is to flower, or into single cells where snails or a short season make that hard. The seed is tiny, around 11,500 to the gram, so the sand trick helps spread it thinly.

Sowing direct

• Rake the soil to a fine, crumbly surface and water it the day before.
• Mix the seed with four to ten parts of dry sand and scatter it thinly in small patches.
• Cover it with no more than about 1 mm of fine soil, then firm it gently.
• Keep the surface damp with a fine spray; seedlings usually appear in 14 to 21 days.
• Thin to 20 cm apart once seedlings have a few true leaves, snipping extras at soil level.

Starting in cells

• Fill single cells or small pots with seed raising mix and sow two or three seeds on each.
• Barely cover the seed, keep the mix moist, then snip off all but the strongest seedling.
• Harden off the young plants for about a week (stand them outdoors a little longer each day so they adjust to sun and wind).
• Plant out when seedlings are 5 to 10 cm tall, sliding each root ball in whole at the depth it grew.
• Water in with seaweed solution at half strength (15 mL per 9 L).

Telling it apart

If the flowers open as round heads packed with dozens of florets, the plants are Gilia capitata rather than Gilia leptantha. Seed catalogues often mix up the two names.

Care by growth stage

Sun, drainage and restraint decide how well it flowers. It is a light feeder that needs water mainly in dry spells. Weeks count from a spring sowing; autumn sowings take longer.

If plants stay small and pale in very poor sand, scratch in a light dose of all-purpose controlled release granular (NPK around 14-5-10).

Deadheading

Removing faded clusters keeps new buds coming and limits the seed that falls.

• Spent clusters: snip each one back to the next bud or leaf once the petals wither.
• End of season: pull plants out once they yellow and stop budding, and compost them if they are healthy.

Companion planting

Good partners share its sun, its lean, free-draining soil and its cool-season timing.

Grows well with

• Californian poppies: another Californian annual for full sun and lean soil that also resents transplanting.
• Baby blue eyes: sown in autumn in free-draining soil, it fills the front of the bed.
• Phacelia: an autumn or spring sown bee plant that flowers alongside it.

Keep apart

• Thirsty vegetables on daily irrigation: the constantly wet soil invites root rot.
• Tall, leafy plants on the north side: their shade stretches the stems and cuts flowering.

Harvesting Blooms

Cut stems for small vases when the first flowers in a cluster have opened and more buds show colour.

• Pick in the early morning or the cool of the evening, never in midday heat.
• Use clean, sharp snips, and cut stems as long as possible.
• Strip the leaves from the lower half of each stem.
• Stand stems in a bucket of water in the shade as you go.
• Keep picking, because every cut also works as a deadhead.

For seed, leave a few late clusters unpicked. Collect the capsules as they turn brown and before they split open, then dry them on paper indoors. Store the cleaned seed in a labelled paper envelope somewhere cool and dry. The fine stems suit posies and small jars, and a few plants left standing keep feeding bees.

Common problems

No seedlings. Seed buried too deep, or sown into cold or baking soil, often fails; sow it barely covered, at the times in When to plant. Read more

Seedlings stall after planting out. Roots torn during transplanting set plants back, as described in Three mistakes. Read more

Tall, floppy plants with few flowers. Shade, rich soil or too much water give soft stems; move the next sowing to full sun and lean soil.

Flowering stops early. Heat and ripening seed end the display, so deadhead often and sow earlier next time.

Seedlings appear the following year. It self-seeds freely; pull unwanted seedlings while small, or deadhead to prevent it.

Pests and diseases

Few pests single it out; most trouble is common to any bed of young annuals.

Garden snail (Cornu aspersum) and slugs. Common in gardens throughout Australia, they feed after dark and can graze a patch of seedlings to the ground, leaving shiny trails. Hunt them by torchlight after rain and set beer traps. Read more

Aphids (family Aphididae). These small sap-suckers form colonies on soft growth, causing yellowing, stunting and sticky honeydew, and they can carry viruses. Hose them off, or spray insecticidal soap at the label rate. Read more

Damping off (Pythium species and Rhizoctonia solani). Seedlings rot and topple at soil level, most often in wet soil or seed raising mix. Sow thinly, water lightly and clear out collapsed seedlings. Read more

Root rot (Pythium species). In waterlogged soil the fine roots rot, and older plants wilt and collapse even though the soil is wet. Pull affected plants and sow the next batch on a raised bed.

Prevention first

• Thin to 20 cm, as set out in Sowing Seeds, so air moves between plants.
• Water as set out in Care by growth stage, never on a schedule.
• Check seedlings for snails and aphids on each visit, including under the leaves.
• Wash seed trays and cells before reuse, since damping off fungi carry over on them.

Tips

1. Sow in small patches rather than rows: the airy clusters read better as a drift of colour.
2. Try a patch in a rockery or gravel garden, which copies the fast drainage of its wild rocky slopes.
3. Plant a patch beside the vegie garden or in a bee border, where the flowers draw bees and butterflies.