Lily-violet sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) is a low growing, but sprawling annual plant that ideally fits into rock gardens, embankments, flower bed edgings and beds with less fertile soils. Broadly branched out, slender and tender stalks of the beautiful sweet alison, as this plant is also called, are covered with large quantities of spiky leaves. These can, however, be hardly seen under the sea of flowers in the blooming season. The tiny blooms in pastel shades of lila and violet form top cymes or thyrses, that are frequently visited by butterflies. The variety offered here blooms exceptionally long, from June to October.

Starting in mid-spring the seeds can be sown directly into soil. This particular variety does not require any special kind of soil, it only needs a sunny site. In order to grow fluffy flower pillows the seedlings should be planted quite densely in 10 to 15 cm spacings. Sweet alyssums tufts with their unusual, lila-violet blooms will adorn the garden in compositions with white and yellow flowers, such as chrysanthemum, cladanthus, baby's breath and the silvery lamb's ear.

Each packet contains 0.5 g of lily-violet sweet alyssum seeds. Growing guide and sow-by date are included in the package information.

• Weight: 0.5 g
• Use: ornamental; rock gardens, embankments, flower bed edgings
• Flowering period: June - October
• Flower colour: lilac-purple, pink-purple
• Vegetation form: annual
• Foliage: spiky
• Site: sunny; every type of garden soil