How Cold Can Sweet Alyssum Tolerate? Detailed Care and Growing Guide

Today I want to share with you a super cute flower - sweet alyssum.

Although the sweet alyssum plant is relatively short, usually only 15to30cm tall, it is super good at "exploding with blooms." Its flowers are tiny, like mini snowballs, clustered together in dense masses. The common flower colors are white and light purple, and both of these colors are especially fresh and elegant. And its blooming period is quite long! Generally, it can bloom from spring all the way to summer, and if the climate is suitable and care is proper, it can even continue into autumn.

Sweet alyssumis actually quite cold-hardy! It can tolerate low temperatures of around minus 5degrees. In the cold winter, when many flowers have already faded or been moved into greenhouses, sweet alyssum can still bloom tenaciously outdoors, adding a different touch of color to the bleak winter days.

So how do you grow sweet alyssum? Growing sweet alyssum is actually not difficult at all. First, choose suitable soil. It likes loose, airy, well-draining soil, so you can mix leaf mold, peat soil and perlite in a 3:2:1ratio. Then it is time to sow. Generally, you can sow in spring or autumn. Scatter the seeds evenly over the soil surface, gently cover them with a thin layer of soil about 0.5cm thick, water thoroughly, place in a cool, ventilated spot, and keep the soil moist. It will sprout in about a week. If you bought seedlings, it is even simpler: just dig a small hole, plant the seedlings in it, and water thoroughly.

Sweet alyssumis also very easy to care for day to day. Sweet alyssum absolutely loves basking in the sun! Put it in a sunny spot, and it will grow short, sturdy and compact, and its flowers will be more abundant and fragrant. However, during especially hot summer weather, just give it a little shade to avoid sunburn. It is fairly drought-tolerant, so you do not need to water it too often in normal times. Wait until the soil surface dries out before watering, and do not use too much water each time, to avoid waterlogging that causes root rot.

During the growing period, sweet alyssum can be given a dilute compound fertilizer once a month, which will help it grow more vigorously and bloom more. Before the flowering period, add some phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, such as potassium dihydrogen phosphate, dilute it and spray it on the leaves or pour it into the soil.

After the flowers fade, promptly prune away the spent blooms, as this can reduce nutrient consumption and encourage it to bloom again. In normal times, you can also cut off some leggy branches as well as dead and weak branches to keep it looking neat and shapely.