Northern growing can be hard. There are things that we’ve, quite literally, applied ourselves to for a decade or more. And are just NOW getting answers.
One such effort has been growing Larkspur from seed. You have no idea the joy that this, seemingly insignificant, little seedling has brought us! We’ve been at this zone 2 perennial for practically a decade now, completely unsuccessfully. But, here we are in 2025. Not just one, but at least three successful seedlings!
To say we needed to “deep dive” into our understanding of cold stratification is an understatement. We’ve truly started to comprehend our need for not just cold stratifying certain seeds, but sometimes literally tossing them to the northern wilds from the get go.
As a last ditch, we set this seed outdoors into soil filled six packs a full six weeks to our last frost. Our thought being it was a conducive both cold stratification and a hostile northern environment. Any water applied immediately turned to ice. Turns out, that’s exactly what this seed wanted!
This is why subarctic gardening is deeply interesting to us. It isn’t always straight forward, there isn’t a manual to follow. While we are working at closing that gap, there’s absolutely no way we could close it in an entire lifetime’s worth of effort. One puzzle piece falls, a thousand others exist.
There are subjects that you can fail at, repeatedly. And when you study them, you still fail at them, repeatedly. And finally, after throwing the entire book at them, you see movement.
Anyway, Larkspur is a really cool (and very poisonous) zone 2 perennial plant that we can grow in northern climates. And it’s been a decade+ nut to crack, unless you heed our discoveries. If you’ve browsed our seed starting schedule, you probably know we’re morally ambiguous about so called “dangerous” plants. We’re willing to take our responsibility, shield our animals from threats and we expect the very same understanding from our readers.
Oh, and in case you’re curious about how Larkspur differs from Delphinium? The simplest way to put it is that all Delphinium are Larkspur, but not all Larkspur are Delphinium. We wanted to get a legit Larkspur under our belt as they’re much less common to see!
