Looking for a flower that's easy to grow, smells like honey and helps your vegetable garden, too? Sweet alyssum checks every box. This low, mounding annual covers itself in tiny blooms from spring until frost. In this guide, you'll learn how to sow alyssum from seed, where to plant it, and how to keep it blooming all season long.
Why grow sweet alyssum?
Alyssum is one of the hardest-working flowers you can plant:
- Fragrance: Its tiny flowers have a sweet, honey-like scent, especially on warm evenings.
- Long bloom: Plants start flowering about 6 to 8 weeks after sowing and keep going until a hard frost.
- Helpful insects: The small blooms are perfect for hoverflies and tiny parasitic wasps, which help keep aphids and other pests in check.
- Easy edging: Plants stay about 4 to 6 inches tall and spread 8 to 12 inches, making a soft border for beds and paths.
Alyssum is a great flower to tuck along the edges of vegetable beds. It fills in bare soil, looks great next to lettuce and greens, and keeps the garden buzzing.
When should you plant alyssum?
Alyssum is a cool-weather annual that handles light frost. You have two easy options:
- Direct sow: Sow outdoors around your last spring frost date. Seedlings tolerate a light frost.
- Start indoors: For earlier blooms, start seeds about 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost and transplant once the danger of hard frost has passed.
Here in Minnesota, zone 5a, that usually means sowing it in early to mid-May for flowers by early summer.
How to sow alyssum seeds
- Pick a sunny spot. Full sun gives the most flowers, though alyssum tolerates light afternoon shade, especially in hot areas.
- Surface sow. Alyssum seed needs light to germinate. Press the tiny seeds onto the soil surface and don't cover them.
- Keep moist. Mist or water gently until seedlings appear, usually in 7 to 14 days at about 60 to 70°F.
- Thin. Thin seedlings to about 6 inches apart, or plant small clumps of seedlings together for a fuller look.
Caring for alyssum
- Soil: Alyssum isn't fussy, but it needs good drainage. Soggy soil leads to rot.
- Water: Water during dry spells, about an inch a week. Established plants handle short dry stretches.
- Feed: Go easy. Too much fertilizer gives you leaves instead of flowers.
- Shear it back: In midsummer heat, alyssum often slows down and looks scraggly. Trim plants back by about a third and water well. They'll bounce back with a fresh flush of blooms when nights cool off.
Where to use alyssum in the garden
- Vegetable bed edges: Plant a border around beds of lettuce, cabbage family crops and tomatoes to invite helpful insects.
- Containers: It spills beautifully over the edges of pots and window boxes.
- Between pavers: Sow it in gaps along paths, where it softens hard edges.
Alyssum often reseeds itself, so you may find volunteer seedlings popping up next spring.
Good companions for alyssum
- Carpet of Snow Alyssum: the classic pure-white variety, dense and very fragrant.
- Red Salad Bowl Lettuce (about 45 to 50 days): the burgundy leaves look striking next to a white alyssum border.
- Incredible Dwarf Sunflower: a short sunflower that pairs well with low alyssum in front of a bed.
A little flower that does a lot
Sun, good drainage and a midsummer haircut are about all alyssum asks for. Scatter a packet along your garden edges this spring, and you'll enjoy the scent and the helpful visitors all season. All our seeds are non-GMO and USA grown, and I pack each one by hand here in Minnesota.
More growing guides