Sweet William, sweet Eleanor

That's my hen Eleanor in the foreground, and the sweet William I planted last year in the background. Now, I know that this stuff is a biannual, but the plants I bought last year were so big that I thought surely they were in their second year and would bloom soon. That's reasonable, isn't it?

No, apparently not. I suspect that no matter how big or how mature a sweet William is when you buy it, it will not bloom until you have stood by, tapping your foot, looking at your watch, for a full year.