Succisa pratensis | devil's-bit scabious
Outstanding late-season wildflower for pollinators
My problem is that I have so many top-favourite plants that my top plants list must be hundreds long! Yet Devil’s-bit scabious is definitely up there at the top of my ginormous list. A wildflower every bit as good as any other ornamental plant, and better than most.
I fell in love with devil’s-bit scabious walking the wilds of the East Yorkshire coast where it grows among heather, ragwort, golden rod and ox-eye daisy. It’s one of those perfect plants that looks great in leaf, forming a lovely rosette in spring, and has tall airy stems lifting those blue-lilac flowers up high in late-summer for a large number of pollinators including at least one threatened insect.