Description
Grow wildflowers to attract birds to your garden too! As well as insects loving wildflowers, birds love them as well! Particularly the seeds of Lesser Knapweed and Teasel. Wildflowers in general encourage biodiversity and you can make your garden more biodiverse by sowing a patch of wildflowers, no matter how small, which will attract butterflies, bees, birds, moths and other creatures.
Each manilla or white paper seed packet is completely recycled, made from quality 115 gsm paper, and measures 9 x 12 cm. The reverse of the packet details the seeds inside and the sowing instructions. The seeds inside are in a paper sachet (not foil and plastic). If you are not using the seeds for a while, they are viable for a few years and are easy to store by keeping them somewhere cool and dry out of direct sunlight.
If buying for business, we can add a logo at no extra cost on the back of the packet – please email it over when you have ordered, quoting your order number.
About the Seeds
This seed packet contains a mix of Lesser Knapweed and Teasel wildflower seeds.
Lesser Knapweed (centaurea nigra)
Lesser Knapweed is a hardy perennial and member of the Daisy family, found on cliffs and grassland in the wild. It has deep pink, many-petalled flowers opening out from a hard bud and grows to around rows to 65 cm. It flowers June to September and is an absolute bee magnet when in flower!
It also attracts butterflies – particularly Tortoiseshell and Painted Ladies – Satyr Pug, Silver Y and Lime Speck Pug moths, and birds like the seeds. Other butterflies – Comma, Silver Washed fritillary, Marbled White, Meadow brown, Ringlet, Small Skipper, Essex Skipper, Silver Spotted Skipper, Chalkhill Blue, Adonis, Brimstone are also particularly attracted to the plant.
Teasel (dipsacus fullonum)
Teasel has some great names! Also known as Barber’s Brushes, Gypsys’ Comb, Jenny Prickfinger and Donkey Thistle. This hardy perennial is well-known for the attraction goldfinches and bees pay it, as well as butterflies, particularly the Common Blue, Common Skipper and Small Copper. Long, oval, spiky flowerheads with tiny pinky-mauve flowers amongst the spikes, it flowers July to August. It also looks just as attractive when the flowers have all dropped. Found naturally by roadsides, riverbanks and canals. Its name comes from the old English word “taesen” – to tease. Dipsacus comes from the Greek “dipsakos”, meaning thirst, referring to the water held in the leaf bases. It can grow as high as 2m or more.
Once flowering has finished, leave the flower spikes on, don’t chop them off! They look amazing and the birds will thank you for this extra dose of seeds in autumn!
Rainwater caught in the cupped leaf bases was traditionally used as a skin cleanser. Birds and insects will also drink this water – it used to be thought that the plant was carnivorous because of the insects it trapped. The spiky flower heads were used to tease (raise) the nap on cloth – they still are in parts of Somerset (a process called carding).
One plant can produce over 2000 seeds, up to 80% of which will germinate, so it is quite a prolific self-seeder – if the birds don’t get the seeds first!
