Daily details from the garden to bring you inspiration throughout the year
When the hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium) starts to go to seed, you know that summer’s days are numbered. The larger, later cousin to cow parsley, and entirely more benign than its toxic monstrous relative, giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum), it can’t really make up its mind what it wants to be. Like a prima ballerina in gumboots, all delicate sprays of white flowers up top and whopping great leaves down below; delicious to pigs, apparently – hence the name – and also to the late lamented Bill, who was partial to munching upon them. In common with all umbellifers, they’ve a large tap root that makes them a bugger to get out should they seed themselves into position in your border, though if you can suffer their presence through summer you may be glad of their architectural silhouettes through the colder months.
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Hello! I’m Andrew, gardener, blogger, podcaster, and owner of a too-loud laugh, and I’m so pleased you’ve found your way to Gardens, weeds & words. You can read a more in-depth profile of me on the About page, or by clicking the image above.
