centaurea montana(cornflower?)

[denise]

have one of these in the border plenty of flowers but the palnt looks as if something has sat right in the middle of it, i remember last year tying string round the plant to keep it together but that wasn't my brightest idea. any suggestions please

[gardeninginagale]

One of the best supports for floppy perrennials is off-cuts of Rylock, or stock fencing, cut to half its height. (Especially the green coated stuff, which blends in very well). Curl it into a cylinder, approximately the eventual diameter of your plant, and fix the ends together with tying wire, or a fencing ring-gun. Just shove in two short canes and tie the support to that. If you do it early enough in the season, the plant will camouflage the support.

You can do the same with rabbit netting or chicken wire, but the trick is to do it early, so that the plant grows up through the support, and hides it, rather than just being wrapped within it.

In fact, if you wish, you only need to do this once. Replace the canes with a couple of stout stakes, and just leave the support in situ. Your perrennial plant will be supported every year, without your intervention. How user-friendly is that?

[gardeninginagale]

Had to come back on this, given your question mark. If it is Centaurea montana, it is a perennial knapweed, and certainly of the same family as the cornflower. But the annual normally known as the cornflower is Centaurea cyanus. You are spot on with the family.

So many people think I am being pretentious when I use botanical names, and that is not the case at all. There are so many overlapping common names that sometimes you simply don't know what plant is being discussed. It is an absolute delight to read a thread with a botanical name in the title. It's not elitism, it is practicality.