Annual flowers - single stocks and their seeds

I absolutely love stocks, although this isn't my favourite type. This one is
a pretty colour though

One of my absolute favourite flowers is an oldie but a goodie - the stock. The quintissential english cottage garden plant that smells divine. The way to my heart is through a bunch of these flowers, which is why I always try and grow my own. Because quite frankly they are over priced in the shops when you consider how easy they are to produce yourself. This year I tried a new variety in my garden, but results have been at best mixed.

So in my experience of growing stocks in the past you get one flower spike grow up, which if you're me you chop off for a vase indoors and then the plant is done. Quick but effective. But the ones I grew this year were great big branching things that I have to say lacked the elegance of stocks you buy in the supermarket. I may have got more actual flower but I prefer the straight-up-and-down of shop varieties. I presume what I grew is a single variety as the individual flowers are quite spaced out. I much prefer a nice dense flower head. But the colours were pretty as ever, and the smell divine.

Pretty and sweet smelling, what more do you need from a plant?

One thing I was not exactly thrilled about was the fact I got my plants in nice and early, they flowered - which is fine - and then they went straight to seed. A stock in seed is not an attractive beast. It grows long cylindrical seedpods which on mass resemble, to me at least, fronds or tenticles. I have no need of tenticles in my garden. I wasn't sure how to progress from this. Could the plants be cut right back, thereby removing the seeds and potentially producing more flowers? Or was this it? As I wanted to try collecting seeds I decided this was it and just left the pods, thinking they would ripen in a few weeks and I could pull out the plants.

This is not my cutting bed at its best but it shows the nature of my stock variety

Stock seed heads do not willingly go dry. My plants have had resolutely green ones for months. I was at the point of despair when randomly about six weeks ago the plants all suddenly re-burst into flower. I don't get how this is possible as they had all gone to seed. It doesn't really matter, the unexpected flowers were a welcome addition to my fading garden.

Not long after this on some of the plants, ones that had not chosen to randomly flower again, one or two of the pods had finally decided to dry. You know when a stock seed pod is ready when it suddenly desicates, goes brown and flat and very dry. Then you want to whip off the pod before it naturally splits and you lose all control over placement next year.

The unripe seed pods, green and plump and not exactly pretty

Im not sure if its better to save stock seeds in the pods over the winter, or store them free, but I decided to shuck my seeds. This is fairly fiddly as the pods are stiff and the seeds miniscule and very light, flying off in every direction under the force of prising the pods open. I shall not be surprised if I get stocks growing out of the middle of the living room carpet next year. Some I did manage to capture in an envelope, and some I most definitely threw away. I did not realise that the pods are divided into two chambers, if you will, with each being filled with a line of seeds, so after empyitng one I threw the other away on quite a few! Oops. Oh well I learnt in the end.

The dried out pods with the ripples showing they are full of seeds. The seeds are small, black and easily losable in the
carpet

I believe you can't guarantee what type of stock you will grow from a home collected seed. You may have had a double, but the seed produces singles, and vice versa. Im happy to try my luck not being overly enamoured with the parent plants. I will also look to supplement my own collection with another variety of the double, mono-headed variety so I get a bit of all worlds.
Overall I would say it hasn't been my favourite year of growing stocks, although they have contributed to the general ambiance in my cutting garden, but I have learnt a lot from these surpsisingly fragrant plants.