Growing Fennel

[ChrisJB]

Having had a good plough through various websites, if I want the plants, they only seem to have the bronze variety, so I'll have to go with those I think and grow some of the normal from seed.

I like the idea of growing more umbellifers for the hoverflies. I tried Dill last year, but slugs wiped the young plants out (I just put the seed down where I wanted them to grow).

Regards, Chris

[Bub-les]

If you get a bronze plant and let it seed a proportion of the resulting plants will be green. You can tell them apart at quite a young stage

[ChrisJB]

Originally Posted by Bub-les

If you get a bronze plant and let it seed a proportion of the resulting plants will be green. You can tell them apart at quite a young stage

Cheers Bub', that's good to know, I'll monitor that and cream off the normal green ones. Why can't plant suppliers just keep things simple! I don't really want the flashy bronze ones!

Regards, Chris

[wyevilla]

Either variety - green or bronze is a must for a wildlife garden. It is particularly attractive to a great variety of hymenoptera and diptera. I have both colours and use it to mask unattractive wall. Its definitely perennial and doesn't seem to colonise - jut gradually expands vegetatively.

Go for it.

Ps i got mine as small potted plants at a school fete.

[m1.carson]

Hi,

As Paul said, it's liable to spread like mad, it's taken us quite a while to eradicate it, very similar to jerusalem artichokes, you have to dig them up every year as soon as you spot them.

After saying that we're going to try for angelica this year, I like it in cakes and can't wait for my other half to candy the stems, just candied pomelo peel,[the great great grandad of the grapefruit] luverly.

Max.

[Paul mabbott]

Originally Posted by aeshna5

Fennel is a perennial - certainly all that I've grown + double checked in Stace which says the same! I love it but can be a nuisance on light soils as it seeds so prolifically + is a pest in some places where it's been introduced, eg. California. Excellent for hoverflies.

Sorry to be misleading - it's probably one of the things that I treat as a biennial, digging a patch in whenever I need the space every year or two!

From a wildlife perspective it's good to have three or four umbellifers - flowering/seeding at different times and hosting a variety of insects. From a gardening point of view make sure that the bigger plants are towards the back of the border - angelica grows to at least 2m!

[Susie]

I am still waiting for my angelica to flower! I bought it in spring 2006 in a pot which would have, I assume, been sown the year before and so I had expected it to flower that summer - but it didn't. When we moved at the end of that year I took it with us and planted it in my new garden, expecting it to flower in 2007. It didn't. This year I am expecting GREAT things of it!

[elleme]

I have fennel in my garden for the attractive feathery form and the seeds which I sometimes use in tea or cooking. Hoverflies seem to like it in flower too. I have bronze fennel, I haven't found this a nuisance so far over a few years with self-seeding, perhaps because the soil conditions (heavy clay) aren't encouraging it especially. The one seedling I've found this year looks like it's going to be bronze. About the taproot, I had one several years ago and managed to kill it off by trying to transplant so I'd be nervous of that again. Otherwise completely trouble free.