I asked about growing these from seed last year - only Roger said he had,
and he had not had much luck with them.

I've now grown some,so:

I grew the variety 'Twinkles' Dark Blue, with seed from
http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk. The small seed packet contained 18
seeds and they were absolutely tiny, so I wished I'd gone for a bigger
pack!

I only got 8 of them to germinate, though this may have been lack of
patience - I sowed them in December, and they took ages to come up.

When they did come up, they sat there for a surprisingly long time, and
made a lot of root for the amount of seedling showing on top.

I think they would really have liked more light than I could give them,
even on a southfacing windowsill, during the winter.

Alas, through the intervention of pets, I had only 5 plants left by May.

They went out into the greenhouse then, and immediately started to grow
much faster, confirming my suspicion that they prefer strong light.

From then on, they were trouble free, (though the later germinating ones
are still not flowering). They don't seem to attract greenfly, snails or
slugs, and were less fussy about watering than I'd expected.

I have planted all five plants into a large tub, and they have produced a
large number of very deep purple (not blue!) flowers.

The flowers do seem to be very delicate, and are easily damaged by heavy
rain or whipping about in strong winds. I should probably have staked
them.

They are apparently perennials, so I'm going to try overwintering them
indoors, now I've finally got them to a reasonable size.

Annoyingly, I find that Morrison's are now selling dwarf plants in pots
for 99p ;-)

But mine are a nicer colour!

Victoria
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
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