Snapdragons: Flower Spotlight
This article comes from our series of flower spotlights, which are adaptations of the newsletters we send to members of our flower share throughout the season. You can see more spotlights by heading here.
Antirrhinum majus, Snapdragon
Forests of snapdragons, please!
Snapdragons are the first ‘fancy’ flower I ever grew, after graduating from sunflowers and cosmos. I remember them as such a great success, and because of how bountiful, varied, and delightful they are, they have become the answer to everyone’s favorite question to ask me: “What’s your favorite flower?”
I love how they smell like candy. I love how they add structure and shape to bouquets and arrangements. I love how easy their foliage is to strip off when we harvest them, and I love their big voluptuous thick stems and their fluffy heads. I love holding an armful over my shoulder on the way to the bucket. I love the way the bottom florets will fall off onto the table from a bouquet, making a beautiful confetti. There are so many reasons.
Our first succession of field-grown snapdragons are in full flower right now! You'll find warm colors like bronze and red, and some lavenders and pinks. We grow the classic snapdragon shape and also the double-floret or 'azalea' type, with ruffled mouths. These are the Madame Butterfly series, but for short on our harvest sheets we call them Mme Butt.
These snapdragons were started in the greenhouse in mid-February, and went into the ground outside the first week of April, pushed back from our usual planting week of Equinox because of our cold spring. They went into landscaping fabric, which in this case is white on top. The white fabric keeps the soil cool and moist and reflects light back onto the flowers, which helps them absorb more photons and make more sugar from the sunlight (isn't photosynthesis crazy?). Once they are about 9" tall, we pinched out their growing points so they would give us more side stems and longer stems. Then, we put netting over top to support them against strong winds and rains.
Now they are pushing out tall, long spikes of big beautiful florets! This fall, we'll try growing snapdragons in our minimally heated greenhouse for winter blooms.
I hope you love them as much as I do.
Snapdragons are a common florist flower, but locally-grown snapdragons have an amazing quality: their scent. To me, many of them smell like jelly beans, or Coca-Cola, or sometimes just cucumbers. Did you know snapdragon florets are edible? If you find a particularly beautiful one, maybe just toss it into your salad or float it on top of your cocktail ;)
Snapdragons’ scientific name is Antirrhinum majus. The genus name comes from Greek and means ‘calf’s nose’, which I find hilarious. I suppose it refers to the shape of the florets, or to the shape of the fruits, which do have two little nose-holes. The species name simply means ‘more’ or ‘large’. So a big ole calf’s nose for your bouquet it is.
According to my book Floriography, the Victorian meaning of snapdragons was ‘presumption’, and derives from a medieval practice of young women, who would wear snapdragons in their hair to show they were not interested in mens’ attention. Would that work today???? I could use something like that...
Madame Butterfly (Mme Butt) snaps
Snapdragon seed pods upside down look like little skulls — upright, they kind of maybe look like a calf’s nose.