PlantSowGrow
How to grow Sweet Alyssum (Carpet of Snow)
Lobularia maritima
🌸 Flower
🌱 Grown each year
Low carpets of honey-scented white flowers for edging paths, pots and gaps in paving. Attracts hoverflies that eat aphids.
At a glance: Sow mid April to mid June.
When to sow, plant and harvest
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Sow outdoors
Flowers
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Sweet Alyssum (Carpet of Snow): what it needs
- Light
- Full sun · 6+ hours a day
- Watering
- Water in dry spells; pots daily in summer
- Soil
- Any well-drained soil
- Spacing
- 15 cm
- Height
- 10 cm
- In pots
- Grows well in containers
- Feeding
- Liquid feed every two weeks once flowering starts
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 2–11
- Difficulty
- Easy
Step by step
- Mid April – mid June · around the last spring frost
Sow Seeds Outdoors
Sow thinly where they are to flower, in a sunny spot, into raked, weed-free soil.
- 5–14 days after “Sow Seeds Indoors” · Mid April – late April
Check Germination
Seedlings should appear in 5–14 days. Keep the soil moist. If sown outdoors, thin them to 15 cm apart once they have two true leaves.
- 46–76 days after “Check Germination” · Early June – early July
First Flowers
Take a photo for your journal!
- Mid October – early November · around the first autumn frost
Clear or Collect Seed
When frost blackens the plants, pull them up for the compost heap. Leave a few seedheads first if you want to save seed.
