This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Can You Identify These 2 Perennial Plants?
Daniel Smith2
Posts: 21
in Talkback
0
Daniel Smith2
Posts: 21
Daniel Smith2
Posts: 21
Posts
The first looks like comfrey
The second is a saxifrage - looks like the one known as London Pride
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thank you so much! Saxifrage - London Pride...from a quick google image search - this is exactly what is filling my borders - I love it!
The species that you refer to as borage is somewhat of a nuisance. The bees adore it...but no matter how much I try to remove it, it just keeping growing back. It has the most resilient root system. It snaps so easily and then returns...double in size. It's taking over my rosemary patch and has somehow spread to my patch of heleniums.
Can Borage grow tall. This species in my garden grows to around 5ft!
Comfrey , not borage
Borage is an annual that dies off usually in the winter.
Comfrey has a perennial taproot and is really difficult to eradicate,it is propagated by root cuttings, if you leave a piece behind it will regrow.
If you want to get rid, spray the foliage with glyphosate, making sure you dont get it on anything you want to keep.
The top one is comphrey, Symphytum officinalis if it's that tall.
Seeds around and has deep roots, good for fertiliser
In the sticks near Peterborough
Sorry, I said borage, slapped my own wrist and edited it quickly - you obviously saw the unedited version.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
It is Comfrey....from a google image and an internet description - it fits the profile! It grows ridiculously quick and seems resilient to most conditions! I am not its biggest fan! I tolerate it for the bees, but I'd prefer to limit it to one area of the garden...but it seems to be having ideas to migrate to other parts and I just can't eradicate it.
Thank you so much 'dovefromabove' ... your botany knowledge is very impressive.
Best Wishes
Comfrey is very useful http://gentleworld.org/the-wonders-of-comfrey/
Keep cutting it and using it - that'll help keep it under control
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Hi Daniel, I have 3 clumps of comfrey near my compost bin, I regularly hack it down and put it in the compost bin, don't let it flower otherwise it seeds about..sorry bees!. Last year I made comfrey liquid feed but wasn't sure about it, it really did pong as you get warned by the experts.
Thank you 'Fidget Bones' and 'Nut Cutlet' too. It has been bothering me not knowing what it is and I didn't know where to start. Random google descriptions did not help, but I know I could rely on the gardening world forum - I don't know why I didn't come here sooner.
I really have no idea how to remove it from my Rosemary patch which contaminating the herbs. I prune the Rosemary back and dug as much of the Comfrey root out as I could...but the little bugger came back to spite me this spring! haha! I have a fondness for the bees, who seem to swarm this species, so I guess I'll just have to tolerate it and prune it back when it starts to go wild!