by James Alexander-Sinclair
Cow parsley is a pretty biennial native plant that scatters itself along roadsides and hedgerows.
Absence will always make the heart grow fonder: especially in gardens. I have just got back after a few days at the Malvern Spring Show — which was, as always, great fun, pretty fabulous and completely exhausting — and it is amazing how much fuller everything in the garden is looking. Plants that were mere toddlers when I left have blossomed into adolescents.
Most notable is the cow parsley, or Queen Anne’s lace. Over the past decade or so we have encouraged it to seed itself amongst the trees alongside the drive and while I have been away it has burst into flower. Cow parsley (or Anthriscus sylvestris to give it its posh Latin name) is a pretty biennial* native plant that scatters itself along roadsides and hedgerows.
I learned from reading a fine blog called The Inelegant Gardener that it is called cow mumble in Suffolk and she also points us to another site that has a whole load of other regional alternatives — my favourites are ha-ho (from Ireland) and dog's keks (the Norwegian version).
There are some fine garden equivalents as well: it would be a mistake to allow the wild version into your garden as it is terribly profligate in its habits and will self-seed everywhere. In particular Anthriscus sylvestris 'Ravenswing' that has deep purple leaves (you will see a fair bit of this plant at the Chelsea Flower Show next week as it is perfect for the time of year). Another one that I love is Chaerophyllum hirsutum 'Roseum', which has flowers of softest fairy pink that fade to white.
* A biennial, incidentally, is a plant that takes two years to flower from seed: it puts on leaves, stems and roots during the first year and then flowers the following summer. A lot of vegetables are actually biennial (for example beetroot, sprouts, carrots and celery) but we eat them in their first year, so they never get the chance to flower. Once they have flowered they die.
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