How to Grow Bachelor Button Flowers

Bachelor buttons, also known as cornflowers, originated in Europe. Bachelor button flowers provide your garden with colorful blooms. The flowers can be 1 inch in diameter and they come in a variety of colors. Bachelor buttons are often used in flower arrangements. This plant grows to heights of 2 or 3 feet and they often self-seed. They are a hardy annual in all U.S. Department of Agriculture zones.

Tiller or garden fork
Rake
Compost

Instructions

- 1
  Find a sunny area to sow the bachelor button seeds. Wait until all danger of frost is past before planting.
- 2
  Till or dig up the ground with a garden fork. Amend the soil with 3 inches of compost and remove rocks, sticks or hard dirt clods .
- 3
  Level the soil with the back of your rake.
- 4
  Scatter the seeds over the soil, being careful to not clump the seeds together in any one spot.
- 5
  Cover the seeds with amended soil to a depth of 1/4 inch.
- 6
  Water the bachelor button seeds using a gentle spray. Keep the soil moist but not soggy or the seeds will rot. It takes a week to 10 days for the seeds to germinate. After the bachelor buttons are growing, water them every 10 days or so, unless your area has had ample rainfall. Allow the soil to dry out between watering.
- 7
  Pull weeds in the area to keep it weed free.
- 8
  Thin the bachelor buttons to one plant every eight to 12 inches apart.
- 9
  Cut off spent blooms to encourage more to set on. Toward the end of the season, you can leave some of the flowers to go to seed. The seed can be gathered or left to fall on the ground. The plants can self-seed.

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