Growing Echinacea, Comfrey and Yarrow in a Backyard Medicine Garden

How to Grow Comfrey

Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) is a hardy perennial plant, adaptable to most climates and easily propagated via root cuttings, crown divisions or transplants. Propagated from spring until early summer by root cuttings or crown divisions. A vigorous grower that can outcompete weeds. Requiring moderate soil moisture. Plant in spring/early summer.

Comfrey is a dynamic accumulator with deep tap roots that mine the subsoil for nutrients, making it an excellent companion plant for vegetables and helping improve heavy clay or loamy soil quality. A source of potassium, calcium, phosphorus and vitamin B12 it should only be consumed externally as ingestion can cause liver toxicity.

Comfrey is an herb frequently used as a folk remedy to heal bruises, sprains and broken bones. Comfrey’s allantoin content promotes bone and tissue growth as well as having cell proliferative properties; its high mucilage content soothes skin conditions as an additional benefit; plus its rich source of proteins, calcium and vitamins A & C!

How to Grow Echinacea

Echinacea is one of the most widely grown flowering herbs and is easy to cultivate at home. A perennial, it can be started from seeds, root divisions or transplanting existing plants; growing it from either seeds, root divisions or transplanting works equally well in most conditions – preferring rich, well drained soil and full sunlight (defined as at least six hours of direct sun per day). Echinacea originates in eastern and central North America where it can be found growing along prairies and wooded areas; native Americans would use Echinacea for treating snake bites, sore throats and toothaches before it became widely known for its immune-boosting abilities to shorten colds by decreasing duration and severity as well as clearing congestion from within its native North American home base.

Brightly-hued petals of this perennial plant will draw pollinators and bees to your garden, blooming throughout summer for fresh herbal bouquets to take indoors or cut for use as decorations. When starting from seed, please be patient as it could take three years or more before flowers appear – an excellent addition to a medicine garden for when an immune boost is necessary!

How to Grow Yarrow

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is an herbaceous perennial flowering from March to September. Growing 1 to 3 feet in height and width, its leaves feature fine linear segments cut in an irregular manner for an elegant feathery appearance. Yarrow can easily be distinguished by its low, spreading flower stems with their creeping underground growth and their clasping leaves that resemble ferns. Their flowers produce dense clusters of flat-topped white or yellow heads at the ends of each stem, as well as their clasped leaves which cling tightly. Young plants of Yarrow typically resemble rosettes with soft bristles before their flowering stem emerges, often known as nosebleed plant, bloody daisy, old man’s pepper or devil’s nettle, nipplewort or bleeding-heart, sanguinary woundwort (soldier’s woundwort), or thousand-leaf.

Yarrow is an easy flower to cultivate, and requires only minimal care to thrive. Sow seeds indoors 6-8 weeks prior to the last frost, or transplant seedlings directly in your garden when soil temperatures have warmed and danger of frost has passed. Yarrow prefers well-draining soil that has moderate drought tolerance. No fertilization is needed but applying a light application of balanced, slow release fertilizer each spring may help avoid leggy growth patterns; regular deadheading helps encourage blooming as well as keeping plants tidy!