Fragrant Plants: Stock

Here at MOSI Outside, we focus on growing nectar and host plants for the butterflies we raise and encourage to visit our gardens. Sometimes, though, we grow a plant or two that's really more for the humans to enjoy, and such is the case with one of our cool-season favorites: stock.

Stock (Matthiola incana) is an old-fashioned flower, once a mainstay of traditional cottage gardens. The spicy scent, reminiscent of carnations and cloves, is reason enough to grow this beauty, but the single and double-flowered stalks of blooms that rise a foot or more to display bright colors of pinks, purples, and white make it even more attractive to modern gardeners. We've filled a pot out in front of the BioWorks Butterfly Encounter with a mix of stock and pink tropical sage (Salvia coccinea), and the springtime colors and delicious fragrance makes us just a little bit happier every time we walk by.

Grow stock in a sunny location for best flowering, and make sure to plant it where the spicy fragrance can be enjoyed. The flowering spikes can reach a couple of feet tall in ideal growing conditions, but the spread is minimal, making it excellent in borders or at the back of the flower garden. Keep the soil moist but well-drained. Stock will start to decline once days consistently reach into the 80s or nights become warm and humid, so here in Florida it's definitely a winter or early spring plant. In some places it may last several seasons, but Florida's hot summers are hard on it, so we choose to treat it as an annual.

Stock doesn't seem to attract butterflies, but bees are certainly happy to visit it. It's not always readily available at nurseries, so consider tracking down some seeds and growing your own. In the right locations in zones 7-10, you may be able to summer it over, getting a second flush of blooms when the weather cools off again in the fall.

What's In a Name?  The genus name Matthiola is in honor of Pierandrea Mattioli, a 16th doctor and naturalist from Italy. Mattioli published a work in 1544 describing 100 new plants, including the first mention of tomatoes in European cultivation. The species epithet, incana, means hairy or silvery, a description of the leaves of the plant.