Spider Flower | Cleome hassleriana
A stunning, spindly floral garden delight.
What if spiders carried flowers on their backs? What if they spun their webs atop tall stalks so their bundles of blooms could be seen above the garden fray of rocks and weeds? Would you make room for these leggy blossom bearers? If you grow Cleome, the Spider Flower, the answer is yes. Let these pink flowers be born and stretch their long, seed-podded legs in your garden. The firework explosions of pink blooms, appearing higher and higher all season, will be your reward.
Direct sow after last frost, or sow indoors 3-4 weeks earlier. Needs light and temperature swings to germinate; just press into soil or potting medium. Pick a location where you want height and dramatic impact. Will self-sow each year in most conditions.
Days to Germination 7-14
Days to Maturity 75
Planting Depth <¼"
Spacing in Row 12-18"
Spacing Between Rows 18-36"
Height at Maturity 4-6'
Width at Maturity 12"
Sun Preference Full Sun
Artwork by Diane Adzema. She layered oil, wax, and glazes to illuminate the beauty and magic of this intricate bloom. Her art glows from within as if it has a light of its own.
About Hudson Valley Seed Company
They are a values-driven seed company that practices and celebrates responsible seed production and stewardship. Hudson Valley are best known for their beautiful artist-design seed packs (Art Packs) that appeal to gardeners, gift buyers, and lovers of art and nature.
These Art Packs, most fundamentally, tell stories. Hudson Valley challenges artists to convey in a manner that is fully their own, the history and meaning of the seed variety contained in each pack. These stories were once integral to traditional societies-stories of seeds were often origin stories for entire communities and peoples, and the lore and beliefs that accumulated around seed varieties reflected the nearly familial way in which gardeners and farmers regarded their crops. Our society is, by and large, no longer connected to plants this way. But we like to think these Art Packs help to stitch our fragmented world back together: useful seeds, evocative art, both equally valuable to our experience of being human.