🍯 Sweet Alyssum
Lobularia maritima
Tiny honey-scented flowers that edge your beds like lace.
Sun
Full sun to part shade
Days to harvest
Blooms ~6–8 weeks from seed
Spacing
6 inches apart
Soil pH
6.0–7.0
How to grow
Sow or transplant in fall for winter-spring bloom in Florida — sweet alyssum is a cool-season annual that quits when summer arrives. It self-sows politely, so one planting often returns. Tuck it along bed edges where you'll brush past the honey scent.
Water & feeding
Keep evenly moist; it wilts fast in dry soil but rots in soggy beds.
Common problems
- Melts in summer heat — plan its exit, don't mourn it
- Aphids on flower clusters; strong water spray handles them
- Damping off in warm, wet seedbeds — sow in cool weather
Harvest
Shear back by half when bloom slows to trigger a fresh flush; no individual deadheading needed.
Nerdy fact: Sweet alyssum's tiny flowers are a top attractant for hoverflies and parasitic wasps — the good-guy insects that eat your aphids — making it a working flower, not just a pretty edge.