Stocks
Matthiola incana
“The most underrated scented cut flower in Britain. Buy a bunch for the kitchen table and you'll wonder why you ever bothered with scented candles.”
— ROSIE
Rosie's Take
Stocks are the flower that makes me wish the internet had smell-o-vision. I can describe the scent — clove-warm, honey-sweet, with something that reminds me of cinnamon and old-fashioned pink icing — but no description gets close to the experience of walking into a room where someone has put stocks in a vase. It's one of the great cut flower scents, up there with sweet peas and garden roses, and it astonishes me that more people don't know about it.
They're old-fashioned in the best possible way. Dense spikes of ruffled, double flowers in the most gorgeous range of colours — dusty pink, deep plum, creamy white, soft lilac, apricot, and a mauve that's practically impossible to find in any other flower. They look like they've wandered in from an Edwardian cutting garden, which is essentially what they are.
I grow the Brompton strains as biennials — sow them in summer, plant them out in autumn, and they flower the following spring and early summer. They fill that gap between the last of the tulips and the first of the roses, which is a gap that needs filling.
As a cut flower, they're extraordinary. The scent intensifies indoors, the vase life is a good week, and those dense flower spikes have a weight and presence that anchors any arrangement. A single colour — all white, or all dusty pink — is my preference. Let the scent do the work.
They're available from good florists and some supermarkets through spring and summer, and they're one of the few flowers where I'd say the bought ones are genuinely worth it. The scent alone justifies the price.
Where to Buy
If you want to try stocks for yourself, here's where I'd point you:
“Flower Station carry stocks through late spring and summer — I order the single-colour bunches when I can get them. All dusty pink or all white. Let the scent do the talking.”
Order This Flower →“Clare Florist include stocks in some of their spring bunches and the scent when you open the box is genuinely startling. In the best way.”
Order This Flower →✿ From the folklore cabinet
Stocks are named after the Old English word for stem or trunk — 'stoc' — which is rather unimaginative for a flower this fragrant. In the language of flowers, stocks mean 'lasting beauty' and 'a happy life.' I'd add 'the reason you should always smell a flower before you buy it.'
