From what I can tell, nobody has even mentioned Heliotrope on this forum since 2014. Has anybody seen any more recently? It was in my mind for things I hoped to see this year but I didn't. I would love to sniff this again. I ordered some seeds since it seems like something I'm not likely to see already growing.

I personally haven't seen it being sold.

I see it for sale here every year. I have also grown it from seed before. I like to buy plants because they aren't all equally fragrant.

TY for the replies! I hope my seeds sprout, and the flowers are scented.

Just never let them dry out when they are small. It doesn't necessarily kill them but it sets them back.

I love heliotrope and it's being sold here every spring. however I have Valerian{the white variety} and that fills in for the heliotrope. It has a very long bloom period and smells heavenly. It has sent seeds throughout the side beds and where ever it comes up I leave it. next spring I'll get some heliotrope for one of the two containers I have and have that gorgeous color as well as the fragrance. My dear friend grew heliotrope with dames rocket and gartenmiester fushias and it was a treat to sit on her deck in the summer.

I've seen it in my bot garden (nyc) just now.. and before that like ..in 1996?
Wierd stuff! I love the purple color!

I see it being sold locally every year, but mine always die, it is not easy keeping up with watering and they don't seem very heat tolerant either. They do have a nice fragrance though.

I do keep it in high shade. Maybe a catch pot or a self watering pot would work for them. But that is one reason i stopped growing them. They crisp up fast.

Ooh, if this plant doesn't like high heat, it's probably not going to go well. I can't even sow any seeds for a few months yet.

I don't know if it was due to the heat but instead keeping the soil moist.

@LorettaNJ is correct about the soil moisture AND not all plants having equal fragrance. I grow it off and on in Iowa, and we get nasty hot summers. It is really pretty easy to start from seed, and the seeds generally aren't terribly expensive.

LorettaNJ said >>I do keep it in high shade.<<

That would explain why my attempts to grow it were unsuccessful. I put it in a very sunny spot, and probably didn't keep up with the watering as well as I should have done.

I grow it every year, some years it overwinters with no effort on my part. I have a bunch of dried flower heads on my kitchen counter (still) waiting for me to harvest the seeds. Our summers can be quite hot and dry and my plants suffer if I am not consistent in my watering - they also really benefit from deadheading and light cutting back to keep them full. Lovely fragrance...mine are always grown near windows so that the scent wafts in on the breeze.

https://www.selectseeds.com/Se...

They have seeds and plants. I grow the one listed as 'old-fashioned' every year and love it (so do butterflies and honey bees). Just so you know, varieties 'Marine' and 'Mini Marine' you might see offered elsewhere have no scent.

Janine, it is good to know a reliable source for fragrance.

In the past, it seemed to me that I had better success growing the white Heliotropium arborescens outside - planted directly in the garden over a stone wall - than the purple kind, and I have no idea why. It gets very hot and humid in our summers - is there a reason why the white variety might be more tolerant of that? I started with store-bought plants.

But now I'm thinking about starting from seeds this year. https://www.selectseeds.com/Se... sells a few varieties of this heliotrope both as plant and seed, and I'm contemplating growing their "Old Fashioned" heliotrope from seed. The Marine one's scent is described as "light", while adjectives for the others grow more enthusiastic.

The wall has come down and been rebuilt (2017) and is already on its way out again (not the stone mason's fault), but if I can get heliotrope going there again, maybe it'll be the fragrance that survives the stones.

A stone wall sounds nice.

Just a side note that apparently Helliotrope can be toxic for dogs. A family lost their pet after the dog ate the plant.

Oh, how sad!