08/02/2026
If you have room to invite an artichoke plant into your garden, in a sunny aspect, you'll never regret it!
I love these giant bursts of purple flowers that arrive in our garden over summer. I've never cooked them for the artichoke, as I just love their flowers that produce after the fruiting stage, and so do the birds and the bees. Vibrant purple soft flowers, that bees roll around in, surrounded by strong outer fibrous, woody petals. Smelling like honey and truly magnificent statement plants in the garden. Excellent cut flowers in large arrangements!
Their symmetry and structure make them stand out as main characters in the cottage garden theme, and they really add a pop of energy wherever I have planted them. Staking out their claim to a minimum of a square metre per basal leaf spread, preferably full sun, so requiring ample space to make their base camp. Starting off small at the beginning of each cycle, after dying back in the cooler months, and then spreading their wings to announce their presence in the heat of Summer, lasting through most of Autumn, until the cold kicks in regularly for Winter. They thrive here in the Hills but are super tough, coping with extremes of heat and frost, returning each year for over 15 years now! I've been able to propagate several from seed and dividing up basal growth to place in other areas of the garden. They're also very inspiring plants on a "lesson level" to me.
Their beautiful sage grey green leaves add texture and masculinity to the garden bed, with zigzagging lengthy but spiky fronds, which die back to provide the best mulch to rejuvenate their own regrowth, when stripped down regularly over their cycle. Their flowers burst into massive blooms from thick woody stalks, with the accent of a buxom diva. Absolute Showstoppers in a garden! Even once they have died off, their woody flowers can be used in dried arrangements, before or after stripping the fuzzy seed heads out.
I've added a few notes about the life cycle (in the photos) of this magnificent cottage core perennial. I will pay attention to sharing more hints as they go through their cycle, so that I can encourage others to also enjoy this plant.
Best hint is give it space to work its magic in full sun and then sit back and enjoy the show! Oh, and if you eat artichokes then please share how you cook them for others, but perhaps let one or two go to flower as well worth it.
Bx
