Nigella, or love-in-a-mist, is a classic cottage garden flower with a long history in English gardens, cultivated since the 1600s. Native to the Mediterranean region, it became part of ancient herbal gardens in company with N. sativa and part of healing and culinary traditions. We still treasure it, for it is easy to grow, flowers freely, and produces abundant clusters of decorative seedpods. Grow in containers, the front of borders, or cut flower gardens. The inflated striped seed pods make perfect dried flowers; fresh-cut flowers are charming combined with calendulas and other small spring annuals. Excellent as a tulip and small bulb companion, its fresh foliage hides but never smothers the fading bulb foliage, the flowers adding another season of bloom. Deadhead to prolong flowering or allow the decorative seedpods to develop. Self-sows.